Wow, seems like its ages since I wrote anything about anything here. And it’s exactly two weeks to the Berlin Marathon on the 28th September! Since the last update of the Tauhara Trail Half in Taupo I have also competed the two other halves on the 63.3 series. Here is a quick recap of the two races.

Taupo Half Marathon 2014 – 03rd August 

This was my third year in doing the Taupo Half and the day was considerably very wet and rained from the start. However I managed to run a 1:26:38 thus running about a minute quicker and bettering the Wellington Half Marathon time of 1:27:37. All good indication that my training was actually showing results.

Taupo Half Marathon 2014 – wet and cold but with a PB!

The race was pretty much a very even affair and I managed to keep even splits all through out. The highlight was running in a pack of six guys who seem to be part of a training group and they kept alternating the lead as a group. I joined in and that kept our sixsome pretty even right until about 18km marker when a couple of the guys started fading away. My last two km’s were not even but I was of course stoked about running a minute quicker PB on that course on that day which was wet and miserable. Comparatively last year in Taupo I ran 1:34:40 so a huge improvement.

Kinloch Off Road Half 2014 – 6 – September

The final event of the 63.3 series was in Kinloch. The hlaf marathon course took the W2K track and the headland loop before returning to Kinloch. This trail was not steep but quite undulating and I found it most challenging from the other two as there was a constant up and down rolling nature of the trail. With not many weeks to Berlin I didnt want to push too hard on this course but just wanted to finish so I can claim my 63.3 Finisher T-Shirt. My final time was 1:44:49 with a 5th placing in my M40-44 category and overall 26th.

Kinloch Off Road Half

There it is – 3 half marathons completed in 3 months and I am in my taper for the Berlin Marathon on 28th September!