Brian O'Flaherty lined up in the crush and completed a half marathon

Brian O'Flaherty, granddaughter Madison and son Sean completed the Auckland half marathon.

Brian O'Flaherty writes:

Sunday November 1 was my birthday.

Nothing unusual about that. I'd had 81 of them.

This one was very different.

Who'd have thought at 6am I'd be on the ferry from the Auckland waterfront to Devonport?

Who'd have imagined in their wildest weed-induced daze that at 6.30 I'd be standing with thousands of others in portaloo queues watching the sun rise over the Waitemata?

But I was, hoping the line would move fast enough to get me out by 6.50.

It did and at the appointed time I joined the crush – a crush it was – waiting for the start of the Barfoot and Thomson half marathon.

There is, someone said to me (it might have been my wife), no fool like an old fool.

I have to believe it; I'll confirm or deny when I get old.

So why had I left the relative calm of Palmerston North to join the professional jocks, the sometime joggers and the unwise whose preparation seemed to have consisted of thinking it was a good idea?

I have a granddaughter completing a dance degree at Auckland Uni, and like most dancers she's fitter than the average athlete.

At 21 she decided this would be her first half marathon. So what does a supportive granddad do? Supports.

It wasn't my first half marathon.

I've been along the lake at Taupō, through the Matariki forest at Waitarere and around the city's streets with the Striders.

But not for a while. I walk pretty much every day, long-ish distances which extend comfortably to 21.1km.

The plan wasn't to be competitive; what does that prove?

Apart from making a three-generation team with my granddaughter Madison and her dad Sean, my thought was I'd be happy to finish in 3½ hours.

I walk, I don't run. I can, but the Achilles can't.

The siren sounded and away we went. Slowly. It was about four minutes before I actually crossed the start line.

The first casualty appeared after little more than a kilometre – a woman flat on her back on a pedestrian island, in the care of a medic.

Not long after that the grunts, the puffing, the heaving began.

How could people have imagined they'd jog 21km if 2km up a gentle slope doubled their respiration rate?

If there'd been a prize for optimism it would have been awarded many times.

Some starters' BMIs made them candidates for Weight Watchers, or a stomach-staple.

Yet here they were $100-odd worse off for paying the entry fee, maybe sponsored to fundraise for one of the five nominated charities and sporting T-shirts with slogans – "I'm sweating for mental health", Starship.

Say what you will about Jafas, and I was one for 23 years (still am at heart), they came to their gates by the score around 7am to cheer on the field – kids in their pyjamas, mums with the day's first coffee, revellers in last night's Halloween costumes, little ensembles pounding out uplifting numbers like When the Saints Go Marching in (make of that what you will … ) all vocal in their encouragement; toward the finish even a section from an Air Force band.

So we pounded on, seeing some good sides of society.

One, it struck me, was the great number of fit young women and men making a race of it – a contrast with the liquored-up characters who people the likes of Police Ten 7 et al.

There was a class for handcycles, I think some wheelchairs, blind runners and around the halfway point where an 11km division started, boys and girls perhaps no older than 9 or 10 jogging ("blitzing" is the jargon beloved of the organisers) across the harbour bridge.

It wasn't a tough course compared with the bush tracks and hills in Palmerston North's east, but it was varied and interesting from Devonport's old million-dollar homes through Takapuna and on to the motorway, where a lane was reserved for the event.

The organisation was excellent, though James Shaw and his followers would have been aghast at the plastic filling the gutters at the refreshment stations.

Those don't attract me, but I was ready for rehydration at the finish.

I don't normally drink lolly water but a blue fluid called Powerade was available by the gallon so I swallowed that and my pride.

It tasted great and I learned it isn't so much lolly water as electrolyte replacement.

So that was the half-marathon. I finished, of course, way behind Madison and Sean, who ran.

But my time was 3h 21m 01s, so that objective was achievable.

The body pulled up well, but tired enough to skip choir practice Monday night.

What's next? Nothing specific in walking terms, but come November 15 the Manawatu Sinfonia and the Youth Orchestra will be at the Speirs Centre.

That's next. And the year ends with the OnStage ManawatŪ Christmas concert on December 14.