Round the Bays – Wellington (1 of 3) 16th Feb

What an event! This was my first time taking part in this Round the Bays in this part of the country (plus it’s a half marathon!) Not quite the easy 8.4km of Auckland RtB’s I’m used to…

Long story longer… I rushed to make sure I was all ready for the Achilles Awards night, as I was the Key Note Speaker! Being so prepared, I forgot about breakfast, forgot I needed to pump my tires up (flying meant I had to leave my battery pump in Ak), nearly lost my race number, couldn’t inflate my tires more than 30psi, and had 5min to get to the start line from being dropped off (cheers Maia and Achilles for the lift in)… then 5sec head start before the runners started. Wow, I’m tired just repeating that! But wait, it gets better…

After the start and runners all around me, it was fine for about 6km, till a cable tie broke and the baseball bat in front of my handlebars now inhibited my ability to turn left properly. Not a big deal, until the road cones on the road was diverting runners away from a round about. Very quickly the lane was in disappeared, so I had a choice between road cone, or bus! Well, I lived and decided to break the rest of the cable ties holding the bat, and toss it to side of the road.

I managed to get another couple of kms before I heard a hiss, and it wasn’t a snake. Now I had 2 semi inflated tires, and one completely flat tyre. Luckily pushing didn’t damage my carbonfibre rim, so I kept pushing for the next 12km to the finish line. If nothing else, the eventful 1hr 52min half marathon was the best stories I have so far.

Of course, big thanks to the organizers and supporters/volunteers that help make this event happen. Huge thanks to Southern Cross, Round the Bays, The Athletes Foot, Chemist Warehouse and all the event’s sponsors. Everyone I spoke to enjoyed it as did I. The after party at the Achilles tent was a fantastic way to end the day, chats and regaling of the days events 🙂 Always a good time, we didn’t even have to try.

Thanks to Chemist Warehouse for the goodie bag too 🙂 It was awesome!!