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Two Hibiscus Coast runners took the podium following the recent Auckland Marathon.
Katrina Andrew, 26, earned second place and Karen Donaldson-Barron, 37, third in the women’s half marathon. Both are experienced runners and modest about their success, saying that the field was not strongly competitive this year due to the timing of other events. The half marathon field of 6030 runners included around 2910 women.
Karen, a physiotherapist, says a highlight for her was running the course, which goes from Devonport across the Harbour Bridge to Victoria Park, with her husband, Brad. The couple own Peak Pilates in Millwater and both are keen runners.
Karen says Brad helped keep her on track as well as being a strong supporter.
“Brad would normally be a lot faster than me, but he has been recovering from an injury, so he ran beside me and kept me accountable to our plan,” she says. “You can rush off too fast at the start and end up with a slow finish, but it’s important to pace yourself.”
The couple has two young children and although Karen fits 45km-60km of running each week around work and childcare, she and Brad don’t run together very often.
“He spurs me along and cheered me on at the end,” Karen says. “It was really nice to do the event together.”
Karen has run the Auckland half marathon twice before. She says she was fitter this time and came in four minutes faster than last year, in one hour, 24 minutes and 26 seconds.
Sport and exercise science student Katrina was feeling unwell on the start line but still ran a time of one hour, 22 minutes and 13 seconds which matches her personal best.
Her love of running began with doing track at college. She covers around 100km each week on training runs in Whangaparaoa and Orewa. “I’m out there a lot and get heaps of comments,” she says.
Having worked for 18 months for Karen at Peak Pilates, Katrina says she was happy to see her former boss on the podium with her.
“There’s an amazing running community on the Coast,” Karen says.
