Well well well! Today i have had the most fantastic day to end the weekend with! And - oh its sunny too! I have been training all along this trip for the auckland marathon (half marathon section, and today i ran it! I was up at 4.30am to get up in time to catch the ferry over to the north shore and be at the start line for 6.30am! I have also had a really great week. I flew up here to auckland on tuesday (28th oct), arrived late afternoon and by the time i had checked in and been to the supermarket it was dinnertime! I am staying in the Auckland international YHA. It s a very cool hostel and although no hostel will ever beat the planet traveller for me it is pretty good! It was nice and bust on tuesday pleanty of people in the lounge and the kitchen. Chatted to quite a few people and realised i quite missed living in a hostel and meeting all the different travellers! HAd a pretty early night on tuesday and headed out for an early morning run on wednesday - thought i would have 2 more easyish runs before race day! As i set out on wednesday morning it was just getting sunny so i had a really nice morning for it! I had planned a relatively short run - however.... i managed to get a little lost!!! when i realised i probably wasnt heading where i thought, i held the thought in my head that dad had taught me 'keep heading in the direction you want and it'll come good - just use your sense of direction!' hmmmm - i tried to do this but kept going down roads with dead ends....nice houses though!! went round in circles several times and saw some beautiful views out across the harbour!!! Eventually i did get back on track and all was good! After breakfast i headed out for a wander round the city and checked out the shops and the markets, then after lunch took the bus over to the Auckland Domain and had a little look around the Auckland museum - pretty good. There was a wild child exhibition on with toys and stuff from kiwi childhoods right through from the 1900's to now - there was some boyband posters up too that i recognised from my own bedroom wall - new kids on the block (NKOTB!!!) and backstreet boys!! haha! Then the weather turnde all rainy and wet so i headed back tot he hostel for dinner and it was so quiet! Despite this thought my dorm room was still full! I was sharing with 3 other german girls. On thursday morning they all woke up at 5.55am and had a conversation in a whispering voice for a good half an hour - why didnt thery just get up and go and sit down stairs? their whispering was more painful than someone talking at that tiime in the morning!!! I actually had to ask them (politely) to be quiet! I felt like a right grump!! Thursday was the day when race registration opened so i wandered down to the harbour front where the expo was held and registration took place. I hadnt realised that it didint open til 12 noon and it was 11.15 when i got there but already there were people queueing - so iwaited with them - stupidly i hadnt expected it to be quite so busy!!!i waited for all that time and ididnt dare move out of line as the queue grew and grew!! It got to about 11.55am and i just couldnt wait anymore - i had to leave the queue as i really needed the loo!!!!! Typical Hardaker! So that was a waste! haha! Well maybe not because it was so nice to chat to other runners and everyone had a story about how and why they came to do the auckland marathon!

So Friday meant i was back down to the expo to pick up my race pack and register! it took most of the afternoon once i had got down there and queued! I tried to get a supporters ferry ticket fro TAsh so she could come over to the start with me but they were all sold out and that was that! The event had chartered all the ferry tickets between 4-6.15am on sunday so there was no other way of getting the ticket. I knew all of this biut i went through to the expo room in the big hall and went to naively ask one of the head honcho's (mike)! i looked lost and so he came over asked if he could help me! yes indeed - i explained that my friend does a lot of running and unfortunately couldnt run this event but had come all the way to support me and was there any supporters tickets left? He said there wasnt and he was very sorry - i looked disappoinited (and i was) and went to collect my own 'athletes pass' - as i was getting to the front of the queue Mike came over to the desk, as i approached to collect my pass - heslyed an extra one over the desk and winked!! yey! thanks mike!!!! He was able to do that because some people that register dont end up running so no one would have been without! and it meant tash could come over to the start of the race and the north shore! She would then be able to get a public ferry ticket back over to the city for the finish!!

So up we got at 4.30am, Tash aswell - my support crew - god bless her! I felt like i hadnt slept all night!

The race was awesome - it was so so good to run with so many people, ther was also a blind athlete; he had a sign on his back which read 'my name is pete - im a blind athlete so please give me some space!' It was really uplifting in a way because all the other runners (myself included) were cheering him on as they ran with him or passed him and he was so happy.

Running over the Auckland bridge was quite stunning - the sun was just rising and breaking through the clouds when i got there too so it was even better! I couldnt have asked for more perfect weather!. The streets in the heart of the city were packed with people cheering everyone along! When i reached the split in the road which said 'half marathon turn right finish line.... or.....full marathon turn left' i thought - wow those people are amazing - right then i could not have imagined running the same distance all over again!!! I gave a little kick for the finish line and just on my right there was Tash!! i waved for the camera!! hahahaha! Its a funny thing but as soon as i saw her i felt like i could run just a little bit faster - i wanted her to be proud of me! The rest of the day was great - the weather held good and Tash and i ad a little bit of a girly day - we went out shopping and trying evrything on and then went out for a yummy lunch in the posh part of town (Ponsonby)!! We had also done some shopping over that way too where all the poser shops are - Tasmanaged to get most of James christmas presents! It was such a great weekend - and i had filled in my final gap - i met Si lad! Now i've met allthe family! Yey!!