Auckland Marathon 2008
- Suppliers Step Up!
By F/S Steve Burton
The RNZAF Supply Team
On the morning of Sunday, 2 November 2008, a group of ten Base Auckland Supply personnel competed in the annual Auckland marathon. All chose to run in the half marathon, except for F/S Grant Winwood who completed the full marathon.
Entering this year’s event was all SQNLDR Shauna Grahams idea, and she then cleverly managed to persuade the rest of the team to step up and challenge themselves!
Tickets went on sale in August and were quickly sold out, with 7,000 people entered in the ½ and full marathon, and another 5,000 people entered in the 5 and 10 km sections. The course began in Devonport (at 0630 hrs!), wound its way over the harbour bridge, and finished at Victoria Park in Auckland city.
It’s fair to say that all team members had good intentions of sticking to a training programme. However, this soon went out the window as many of us battled motivation problems and encountered age-related injuries. But, in saying this, we all ended up successfully completing the event, and still managed a smile at the end of it. We even managed to promote the RNZAF, by running in our RNZAF ‘Step Up’ T-Shirts and recovering under the RNZAF Auckland gazebo.
We encourage others to enter in one of the various events on offer next year, and enter an even bigger RNZAF Team.
A big thanks needs to go to CPL Krissy Donges (Anzac Exchange) for her support on the day, and to the PTIs for providing the Gazebo.