Round the Bays 2016

It's Round the Bays day once again. Wellington turned on ideal warm and overcast race conditions today for this annual event, leaving the sun to make its well timed appearance at the post-race celebrations. The coolness of the southerly was welcome even if the extra resistance it provided was less appealing.

A group of us from work entered different races. Some of us met at the start line before heading off to our various starting points. We somehow managed to be back at the office afterwards at almost the same time for an informal debrief. I entered the 10 km walk for the third year in a row. The course is a picturesque journey around Wellington's coastline with an extra few kilometres thrown in at the end in the form of a there-and-back jaunt to just past the Miramar cutting, finishing at Kilbirnie Park.

There is much fanfare at both ends of the race and plenty of encouragement along the way. Highlights this year included the percussion band at Balaena Bay and the family fun zone at Kio Bay, where jet plane lollies were on offer to passing racers. It's always disconcerting to see St John ambulance staff taking someone off the course and driving them away for treatment. I passed three of these along the way and was grateful that first aid was so readily available for those who needed it.

After last year's time of 1:27:17, I had ambitions of slicing a couple more minutes off to finish somewhere around 1:25:00. A sneaky glance at MapMyWalk at the 5 km walk had my time at 44 minutes, when I was aiming for around 40 minutes. I really wish I hadn't looked as I spent the next half of the walk realising I probably wouldn't be able to reach my goal. I powered on but started losing juice around the 8 km mark. I finished up at 1:28:18, disappointed with my time this year but still glad to be part of such a large scale positive event.