21km later...

look how far out those waves start!

I can’t believe this weekend was my last weekend in New Zealand :(  I’m sorry, WHAT?!?!

After my NZ history exam on Thursday (SO glad that’s over), I headed up to Clark’s Beach to stay with Barbara and Garth for the night.  The next day, they took me about an hour or so north to Muriwai Beach to show me the Gannett Colony.  All I know about gannetts is that they’re birds.  This beach was easily the most beautiful beach I’ve seen in my life.  The waves were HUGE and they crashed against the rocky shore that was below the hills that led to the ocean.  The gannett colony viewing area was high above the water so it gave a great view of everything, not just the birds.  On one side of the gannets was the rocky shoreline and on the other side was miles of black sand beach.  The waves looked like they started forming about a mile away from the shore.  Amazing.  Of course the gannets were pretty cool, but I could have just stood there, watched the ocean (especially as it crashed against the gigantic rocks), and thought about how cool life as a water molecule would be.  There were a few surfers out and they looked like wee little ants compared to the massive waves.  Anyways, I have LOVED getting to go to Barbara and Garth while I’ve been here.  Barbara reminds me so much of my Mamaw and I could’ve just talked to her for hours and hours.  So blessed to have random family that I’m actually kind of not really related to here in NZ who are so willing and delighted to take me places and let me stay with them!

the gannetts

Garth, Barbara, and I taking it all in

On Saturday, Loren and I headed up to her house to stay the night before running the Auckland Half Marathon this morning.  We picked up our race packets and numbers in Auckland, went on a little run, made some yummy risotto/stirfry dinner, laughed off as many calories as we burned running 13.1 miles today, and just hung out.  I set my alarm for 4am as we had to be in the city at 5:15am to take the ferry over to the starting point.  So I went to bed around 10:30, buttttt... didn’t actually go to sleep until after 1:15am.  You know when you just lay in bed and no matter how comfortable or tired or warm or cozy you are, you just can’t go to sleep?  Well that’s definitely on the list of the top 5 things that annoy me, and that’s what happened last night.  Oh well though, I got up at 4am and we made it to the ferry!

a pic of the Harbor Bridge

Started at Devonport, went around, over the Harbor Bridge, and into Auckland!

We went from Auckland (where people were still out partying from the night before, sheesh people!) to Devonport by ferry and watched the sun begin to rise on the way.  Yep, that’s how early it was.  The sun was JUST NOW starting to rise.  Eventually we got things all squared away, ipods in their position, and began the 13.1 miles/21km at 7am!!!  The first ~8k were great, then I got a little tired, kept going, got passed by speed-walkers, caught up to them again, ran up what seemed like HUGE hills, felt the joints in my knees cracking as I ran down the other side of those hills, ran over the Harbor Bridge (so incredible!), saw the water station that seemed close but was actually like 4k away through winding paths (not cool), got REALLY worn out at about 16k/10 miles (highlight of the run: at 16k there were people standing on the sidewalk with a sign that read ‘NEKMINNIT…FINISHED!’  Made my day and I literally laughed out loud, to myself. Haha, so great.), kept going though, thought the finish line was around every single turn in the last km, was disappointed when it wasn’t, and after playing the same 6 songs that have the perfect beat to run to (and playing Air Force Ones by Nelly probably 18 times alone), I FINALLY FINISHED!!! My first half marathon: COMPLETE!!!  My first thought after crossing the finish line was ‘Oh my lands, I am NEVER doing that again.’  But I think I just might (after my body heals and I can walk right again).  I ran the whole thing minus walking a few times when I got really tired and at the water stations until I was done drinking (total probs less than 1km) :)  SUCCESS!  For 2 weeks of training, I’d say it was a pretty good first go.  The atmosphere of the whole thing was really neat as well… all along the way, on the sides of the streets, there were all kinds of people cheering, giving high fives, and just being encouraging in general! How sweet!  I ended up coming in 4478 out of 15,000 which is top 30%.  Fine by me, just glad I finished and pretty much ran the whole thing!

Sunrise over Auckland

We did it!!  Nekminnit... can barely walk.

Loren and I came back to her house, practically limping (me at least), and laid by her pool for a good bit of the afternoon.  So to add to the overall soreness of my whole entire body, hellooo sunburn! Great.  Just in time for winter though, right?!  We made some delicious smoothies and eventually headed back to Uni!

YUM.

On another note, can we please go over how many days I have left in this country?!?! SIX. 6. S-I-X.  What the heck?!  Is this real life?!  Here’s the plan for the rest of my time here:  Geography exam on Wednesday (then I’m officially a second semester senior. Get out of town.), Dinner with the Hemmes’ family from church on Wednesday night, hang out time with Shannon, moving out of my room at Uni and off to Loren’s again on Thursday, fishing with Kelsey, Loren and Loren’s dad on Friday, then AIRPORT on Saturday.  I’m not counting down the days, I’m making the days count.

Prayers for saying goodbyes :( and safe travels home would be just great!

Muriwai Beach