The HoS reports:

A private investigator has complained to Auckland Council and the Serious Fraud Office about a trust that was the biggest donor to disgraced Auckland mayor Len Brown’s election campaign.

Grace Haden, who stood unsuccessfully for the council in October on the Transparency New Zealand ticket, asked council chief executive Doug McKay, electoral officer Bruce Thomas and the Serious Fraud Office to investigate the New Auckland Council Trust.

Returns filed earlier this month showed Brown’s successful campaign was funded by $343,375 in donations, with the biggest donor the New Auckland Council Trust, which chipped in $273,375.

The trust, which contributed $499,000 to Brown’s 2010 mayoral campaign, allows donors to keep their identities secret.

Haden said the trust, and others like it, was impossible to investigate because it was not incorporated. “It’s a total sham.” She wants the trust’s legal existence established, and those who set it up and the trustees and beneficiaries identified publicly.

Brown’s campaign spokesman, David Lewis, said it was “fascinating” Haden was complaining only about the New Auckland Council Trust, and not any others. “Trusts … have been used by political parties for years. Len Brown’s campaign abided by the law and it’s a perfectly legal operation for raising money.”

Lewis is correct that trusts were legal for local authority elections – up until 29 June 2013. They have not not been legal for parliamentary elections for many years. Brown knew that trusts would be made illegal (or at least have to reveal their donors) for this election, but got in as much money as possible before the law change. Labour claims it wants transparency in electoral finance yet its most prominent members who is a Mayor does everything possible to avoid the transparency,

I wonder how many of the donors want their money back now?

Matt McCarten gives his losers and winners for 2013:

Losers

1. Len Brown
2. John Banks
3. David Shearer
4. Pita Sharples
5. Peter Dunne

Winners

1. David Cunliffe
2. Colin Craig
3. John Key
4. Russel Norman
5. Winston Peters

The Herald reports:

The South Island has had bigger median income gains than the North over the past seven years, Census figures show.

But an expert cautions that the figures may point to changing work and migration patterns, rather than real growth in income for the same people.

Statistics New Zealand figures drawn from last year’s Census show all regions in the South Island, except for the Queenstown-Lakes District, have had growth in real median income.

Buller District’s median income increase was up 19 per cent on 2006. Ashburton and Southland District had increases of 14 and 11.7 per cent.

In the North Island, New Plymouth and Stratford District had the largest increases with 8.5 and 7.4 per cent.

Median incomes in Auckland, the central North Island and some East Coast regions were down on the 2006 Census.

So median income down in Auckland and massive growth in Buller, Asburton, Southland and Taranaki. This is what Labour calls the provinces missing out. I never knew they regarded Auckland as a province.

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

Cunliffe also uses an essential duality – which has been accurately pin-pointed as “talking out of both sides of his mouth” – to try to assuage middle-class and politically adept New Zealanders that he doesn’t really mean all the tosh he threw as bait to Labour’s bedrock base to garner voting support during his leadership campaign.

What fascinates and frustrates is that it is difficult to work out which side of Cunliffe’s mouth will triumph if he ends up this time next year as Prime Minister.

Will it be Raging Red Cunliffe or the former consultant for Boston Consulting Group?

But at year’s end, Labour under its new leadership is no further ahead in the political polls than it was at the start of the year.

The pendulum has swung back again towards National, with the optimism indexes showing much of the country in good heart and the Government poised to post a return to Budget surplus next year.

The problem facing Cunliffe is how he can convince enough voters the country is on the wrong track given the resurgence in economic growth. This growth will continue into next year as a result of a range of factors including Auckland’s housing boom, big demand for dairy exports, the Christchurch post-earthquake rebuild, immigration and the favourable terms of trade.

Overcoming this is no easy feat for any politician even one as experienced and competent as Labour’s leader.

My predictions – lots of tax and spend promises.

The Herald reports:

RadioLive host Duncan Garner has launched into an expletive-laden public rant against rival Newstalk ZB presenter Leighton Smith.

The former TV3 political editor made his comments in the January edition of Metromagazine in an article titled “Getting drunk with Duncan Garner”.

After a dinner that included five bottles of red wine, Garner said to Metro journalist Steve Braunias: “I’ll tell you a story.”

Only five bottles? Was Braunias not drinking?

“It was about two or three weeks before my show was due to start … We ran into Leighton Smith and he says, ‘Garner, what have you done?”‘ he recalled.

“He said, ‘You’ve gone to some backwater radio station and you’ll never be heard of again.’ There are some moments in life that remain with you. I’ve been waiting to tell someone this.

“I thought, ‘What an arrogant prick, saying that to me.’ This institutionalised guy telling me I would never be heard of again. Every day I get up in the morning now I think of Leighton. And I work harder because of it, if that’s possible. I think, ‘F*** you. F*** you, you old prick’.”

Using even stronger language, Garner said Smith had had a great career and was very successful, so he didn’t need to treat him so arrogantly.

“I was never brought up to be a prick like that for no reason … I’ll never forget it. He just treated me like this piece of dirt, that RadioLive was nothing. That’s really affected me.”

No love lost in commercial radio.

Stuff reports:

Husbands and boyfriends, beware. Kiwi women are twice as likely as men to go snooping through their partners’ mobile phones without permission.

A survey of 2144 mobile phone users by market researcher Canstar Blue found 13 per cent had secretly looked through their partners’ phones. Women were twice as likely as men to do this.

People aged 18 to 29 were the main offenders, with 26 per cent of them admitting to having had a sneaky peek. Those aged 30 to 44 were not far behind, on 20 per cent.

I’ve lost count of how many people I know who discovered their partner was cheating on them by checking out their cellphone. Well into double digits. Very easy way to get caught.

The Herald reported:

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un was reportedly “very drunk” when he gave the order that a pair of aides close to his executed uncle should be killed.

The North Korean dictator ordered troops to round-up hundreds of relatives and associates of Jang Song-Thaek, who was shot On December 12 after being accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

The leader ordered the executions after they did not hand business to the military – a move which left the dictator ‘upset’, according to reports in the Japanese media.

The aides have been named as Ri Ryong-ha, the first deputy director of the administrative department of the state’s ruling Workers’ Party, and Jang Su-gil, a deputy director in the same department.

The pair are believed to have joined the grim toll of Jang’s aides – eight are believed to have been executed since the purge, Yomiuri Shimbun added.

I recall Gareth Morgan saying:

“The country is beautiful,” Gareth said. “The country is just fantastic, the farms are perfect. They have no pollution.”

“Frankly I don’t see the DPRK regime through any different lens than I see China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia – even Singapore at times – authoritarian regimes all of them,” he added.

Maybe Gareth and Dennis Rodman could go into business together, based on their shared appreciation of the beauty of fantastic North Korea?

The Herald reports:

Nearly 40 per cent of New Zealanders believe GST should be charged on all purchases made on foreign shopping websites, a survey has shown. …

A Herald-DigiPoll survey this month found that almost 55 per cent of the 750 New Zealanders polled had bought goods from foreign websites.

Of those surveyed, 53 per cent said the $400 exemption should not be removed as the tax would be too inconvenient to collect.

Surprisingly, just under 40 per cent – 38.5% – agreed with the view of the Retailers Association that the 15 per cent GST should be applied to all overseas online purchases to level the playing field for local retailers.

This is like polling people on whether they would like more sunshine. You can want it, but it doesn’t mean it will happen.

Unless overseas companies decide to volunteer to collect tax for the NZ Government, then the only way you can apply GST to all purchases made on those sites is to have Customs impound every single letter and parcel sent from overseas, open it, assess its value, invoice you for the GST, and refuse to hand it over until you pay the GST. It would cost the Government hundreds of millions of dollars and piss off around two million or more NZers who would find that they no longer get mail from overseas delivered to them.

Labour Party revenue spokesman David Clark said the Government “needs to explain to New Zealand businesses why they should be disadvantaged by having GST collected when overseas business don’t face that challenge”.

“It seems it would be pretty simple to speak with Amazon and other suppliers to ask them to collect GST since they collect, as I understand it, sales taxes for individual states in the US. If that’s true, then it’s obviously an ideological decision from the Government not to collect it.”

David Clark is a smart guy, but he sounds like a moron when he speaks such tripe. Amazon is a US company and obliged to collect tax for the US Government from US citizens. It is not a NZ company and the NZ Government has no power to force it to collect GST for us.

To say that Amazon not charging GST to NZ customers is because of an ideological decision of the NZ Government is one of the most patently false and stupid things a NZ politician has said this year.  Perhaps a journalist could ask David Clark if he will guarantee that under a Labour Government, Amazon would collect GST for the NZ Government?

Karl du Fresne writes:

What on earth has happened to Dunedin?

I’ve always thought of it as a city of hard-working, practical, no- nonsense people, reflecting its Scottish Presbyterian heritage.

It was the home of Sir James Fletcher, founder of a construction empire, Henry Ely Shacklock, who made the country’s first electric ranges, and Bendix Hallenstein, whose name lives on in the menswear chain he established.

I wonder what such men would make of Dunedin today. Once a southern bastion of industry and commerce, it’s now chiefly known for the torrent of shrill, moralistic scaremongering emanating from Otago University.

It seems hardly a week passes without someone from Otago University, or one of its satellites in Christchurch and Wellington, warning us that our drinking and eating habits are leading us to moral and physical ruin.

You name it, they want it banned!

The Otago researchers’ findings always paint the blackest picture imaginable. And the message is invariably the same: our consumption habits are out of control and the government must act.

Underlying that is another message again: we are all at the mercy of greedy purveyors of booze and high-risk foods. Their wickedness must be curbed by advertising bans and punitive taxes. Hostility to capitalism is never far from the surface.

du Fresne hits the mark. Often these taxpayer funded lobby groups has spokespersons who have an unrelenting hatred of big business.

Cracked reports on five pieces of good news:

#5. We’re Closing in on World Peace (Seriously)

Even with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the first decade of the 21st century saw the number of annual battle deaths at its lowest ever in history.

The number of deaths in significant conflicts in 2013 was around 98,000 out of a global population of over six billion. And 70,000 of those were in Syria alone.

#4. Teen Are Less Likely to Smoke, Drink, or Do Drugs Than Ever

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has been surveying tens of thousands of high schoolers for almost four decades, and not only is drug use down, but almost every form of substance abuse is down.

And not only are the kids not injecting hardcore narcotics any more, they’re also consuming alcohol at record lows, as binge drinking continued its five-year decline right into 2012.

In NZ also, the number of svhool age teenagers who drink alcohol is at record lows.

#3. We’re Getting More Tolerant

If compared to an ideal world free of prejudice, the current state of things is a shameful walrus orgy of a disaster. If compared to the actual world at any point in the past, things look pretty fucking good.

For example, in 2013, 87 percent of Americans surveyed approved of interracial marriage. Just 50 years ago, over 90 percent of Americans disapproved.

A long way to go, but much better than in the past.

#2. Literacy Is at an All-Time High

First, we need to point out that we live in the most literate world ever. Currently, about 99 percent of American adults can read and write. But that’s America — a better question would be how the rest of the world is doing. The answer is also pretty impressive. Take India, for example, and its 1.2 billion people. Fifty years ago, only 18 percent of them could have enjoyed the Twilight saga. Today, over 60 percent of the country can enjoy literature’s greatest love story. Worldwide as a whole, that figure is 84 percent.

It’s 94% in Vietnam.

#1. Worldwide, Poverty Is Dropping at a Shocking Rate

Yes! Even though lately it seems like the whole world is in a race to the bottom, the poorest of the poor are actually climbing out of the financial shithole. From 1990 to 2012, the number of the world’s extreme poor was cut in fucking half. In case you were wondering, that would be the first significant global decline in extreme poverty.

So how did this happen? International aid helped, but the big jump has been in the increased participation of previously isolated countries in international trade. 

Yet certain political parties continue to oppose freeing up of trade barriers.

Claire Trevett writes:

After a year of travels, both domestic and international, Mana leader Hone Harawira also decided to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors, the great explorers, and set up an expedition of his own: the goal being to find out where his office in Parliament actually is.

Heh.

Labour MP Shane Jones will finally give up his favourite pastime of riling up those in his own party by shredding the internal organs of the Green Party and singing paeans to mining, casinos and big business. He will instead be elected as leader of the political party that is his true turangawaewae: Act.

Shane would be an excellent Leader of ACT!

Stuff reports:

Egypt’s military-backed interim government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, criminalising all its activities, its financing and even membership to the group from which the country’s ousted president hails.

The announcement is aimed at crippling the Brotherhood and poses a dramatic escalation of the fight between the government and group, which has waged near-daily protests since the July 3 military coup that toppled President Mohammed Morsi.

Hossam Eissa, the Minister of Higher Education, read out the Cabinet statement after long meeting. Eissa said that the decision was in response to Tuesday’s deadly bombing targeting a police headquarters in a Nile Delta city which killed 16 people and wounded more than 100. The Brotherhood denied being responsible for the Mansoura attack and an al-Qaida inspired group claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing yesterday.

I don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood, but I don’t think they are a terrorist group. Trying to outlaw them didn’t work for Mubarak (made them more popular) and I doubt this will work. It is hard to see a return to democratic government, as no election will be seen a valid if the party that last won an election is banned.

Stuff reports:

Hamilton mother-of-six Kaye Nonoa received an unexpected letter on Christmas Eve – a court summons from her son’s former high school for unpaid fees.

This comes after he was banned from attending his school ball earlier in the year for having outstanding fees, despite being head boy.

Mrs Nonoa is upset that Melville High School is using such a forceful method to recover money she doesn’t have.

The letter, handed to her by a plain-clothes woman at 7.30am on Tuesday, said the school was taking legal action to retrieve $1166.84 in sports and subject fees from 2011 to 2013 and $1133.50 in legal costs – $2300.34 total.

Her son, Johnboi, 18, finished school this year.

He was head boy, captain of the First XV rugby team, a member of the top basketball team and also took part in cultural activities.

The fees Melville High are seeking are for sports and specialist subjects like photography and food technology, not the voluntary school donation.

Mrs Nonoa has been on a widow’s benefit for the past 10 years and said she paid off small amounts when she could afford it.

This to me seems to be the crux of the issue. Of course it is difficult to afford all these additional costs on a widow’s benefit. But we live in 2013, not 1953. Why do we deem it acceptable to remain on a widow’s benefit for 10 years? I’m all for supporting someone whose partner suddenly dies – but maybe for a year, not a decade, and/or until all the kids are at school (as must be the case if you have been on the benefit for 10 years).

Labour abolished any  work-test requirements for the Widow’s Benefit in 2003. If they hadn’t done so, it is likely Mrs Nonoa would have found part-time work, and be in a better position to afford the additional school fees.

As it happens last year the work-test requirements were re-instituted, and the Widow’s Benefit merged into the new Sole Parent Support benefit.

The HMNZS Te Mana is spending Xmas on anti-piracy controls in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somalian coast. May they and their loved ones have a great Christmas Day despite the distance between them.

Alan Turing is considered the father of computer science and in WWII his work with code breaking (especially Enigma) saved numerous lives. His work was indispensable to the efforts of Hut 8.

He was granted an OBE in 1945 for his wartime service. From 1945 to 1952 he worked on early computers.

In 1952 he started a relationship with a 19 year old man. The Police arrested the men for their consensual relationship, when Turing acknowledged their relationship to them, as they were investigating a burglary at his place. He pleaded guilty to “gross indecency” and was given a choice between prison and chemical castration which rendered him impotent.

He killed himself in 1954, by cyanide.

Yesterday, the UK Government had the Queen exercise the royal prerogative of mercy and pardon Turing for his conviction. It is appalling that anyone, let alone a war hero and one of the most brilliant men of his generation, was charged with a crime for an adult consensual relationship that harmed no one. Even worse that the consequences were prison or castration.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Herald reports:

One of the most puzzling aspects of the Len Brown scandal is when he found time to cheat on his wife, says former North Shore City mayor-turned-MP Andrew Williams.

“It was full on – from dawn to dusk,” said Mr Williams, now a New Zealand First MP. “Your spare time would be limited. I am somewhat aghast he would have had the time to do it. I was run ragged for three years.

“[Wife] Jane said to me, ‘I can’t believe he would have time for an affair’.”

To be fair, it seems the encounters did not require much time 🙂

Mr Williams said he was surprised by the details brought out in the EY (Ernst & Young) report. The amount of phone contact with Ms Chuang was a surprise. “I don’t think I would have rung my wife 1375 times.”

I’m no expert but I understand people tend to contact their mistress more than their spouse!

He said the frequency of stays in hotels in the city was also unusual. Mr Williams said it would have taken Mr Brown as long to get home as it used to take him as North Shore City mayor – and he had needed a hotel only once. On that single occasion, city-based meetings were followed by a black tie function and a 6.30am start the next day.

The number of stays by Mr Brown “seems excessive”, particularly considering the Super City mayoralty came with a car and driver.

At least 60 stays and he lived 20 minutes from the CBD!

The SkyCity hospitality – including free rooms and upgrades – was “definitely a conflict of interest”.

“That should have sent alarm bells to Len straight away.”

Yep.

Now that I can walk normally again, I figured it would be worthwhile blogging in more detail about the experience of the New York Marathon.

I only decided to enter it in June, and it is fair to say that even a year ago the thought of running a marathon was ridiculous. I could run for a few hundred metres, maybe a km or two but not much more.

My goal last year was to be able to run the 7 km Wellington Round the Bays in February 2013. I used a running app to do treadmill runs to extend my capacity to run from two minutes to three minutes, to five minutes to 10 minutes and so on.

Over summer I was in Lake Brunner for a while, and managed to get some running in there. But was still sporadic – run for a bit, walk for a bit etc.

Come February was my first run since secondary school, and to my surprise I not only managed the 7 kms, but did it in under 40 minutes. I then set a goal of 10 kms and entered a race in June for that distance.

I then set a goal of doing a half-marathon in February 2014 – at the Round the Bays again. I got the 10 km to 21 km running app and started following that.

After I entered the Armstrong 10 km race for June, I got on their newsletter list and there was a mention of the New York marathon in 2014. At the back of my mind I had thought it would be incredible to be able to run a marathon one day (considering for 20 years I couldn’t run a few hundred metres) and New York was meant to be an incredible experience. The major problem was the date – November 2014. It is highly likely that is when the election will be, and my work responsibilities would make it near impossible to do. So the backup was to maybe look at doing it in November 2015, but I doubted one could keep up the motivation for almost three years.

So I inquired of the travel company about the 2014 marathon, and they said that actually they are not processing applications for that yet – but they did have a spot available for the 2013 marathon. That would solve the timing issues of 2014 and 2015, but could I go from 7 kms to 42 kms in five months?

I delayed the decision until after the 10 km race, but having managed it in around 52 minutes, I decided to give it a go and enrolled. In theory four and a bit months should be enough time. I was incredibly nervous about whether I could manage it. It didn’t help that I had previously planned a four week road trip through the US, which meant I didn’t get to run as much as I should.

Over the next four months I managed two half marathons but with a week to go had never run more than a half. And the two halfs I had done, had left me exhausted at the finish. The thought of doing effectively two half marathons in a row was daunting.

Headed to Wairarapa seven days before, and managed to do a 30 km run from Martinborough to Lake Ferry. That gave me a bit of a mental boost, that I managed three quarters. However again I was exhausted at the end of it. Also you’re meant to taper off the week before a marathon, not do your first greater than half marathon distance. So I was semi-confident I could complete 42 kms, but far from sure I could do it without walking some of it -which was my goal. Didn’t care about the time, just that I could actually run the whole thing.

On Wed 30th flew out to New York, via San Francisco. Landed around 11 pm and we got to our Times Square hotel just after midnight, where the good folk from Travel Managers met us. I checked into my room and then headed out around 1 am wanting to get some food. The only thing open was McDonalds so I had my fist quarter pounder in over a year, figuring I’d burn the calories off in a few days 🙂

The next morning around 100 of us Kiwis gathered and marched down to the registration hall. A huge almost military like operation as you register and get your marathon bag. We heard stories of how people had registered last year and then had the marathon cancelled at the last moment due to Hurricane Sandy.

After registration is the expo, where you can buy every sort of running gear possible. I got a hat, top, jacket etc with the official race logos on them. However didn’t wear any of them on the day, as best to run with gear you are used to. Also got the all important anti-chafe gel!

Spent the rest of Thursday just hanging around Times Square, and visiting the huge Midtown Comics store in Times Square.

As I had little sleep the night before, I crashed early and woke up around midday Friday. Friday was my sort of freak out day as I started to panic that I didn’t have some old warm clothes to throw away at the start line. I also read every website there was on tips for the marathon, and drew up a checklist of what I needed to do before the race, and when I should take water and energy gels at which mile stops.  I got a great massage at a fairly cheap Chinese place near Times Square and just tried not to keep focusing on the fact I had no idea if I could actually manage 26 miles or not.

That night I didn’t sleep one second. A mixture of jet lag and anxiety meant I spent the night staring at the bedroom ceiling trying to will myself to sleep. I finally gave up at around 6 am. Not ideal preparation.

Saturday I headed uptown to meet an old university friend, Kirsty, and her family. Just what I needed to relax and unwind. Kirsty was one of less than five people who knew I was planning to do the marathon. I didn’t want any pressure of expectations, so had told almost no one in NZ I was planning to do it. My family didn’t even know I was overseas, nor did most of my friends. The few people who I had to tell I was in the US were given a cover story of visiting some political contacts in DC.

The only person who did find out in advance was, by pure coincidence, the Prime Minister. I ran into him at the Koru Club and he asked me where I was heading to. I considered telling my normal cover story, but figured it was a bad idea to lie to the Prime Minister (plus he could check with the GCSB!) to his face so confessed to him that I was hoping to run the NYC Marathon that weekend. I swore him to secrecy, but did get some nice encouraging texts from him. Part of me was regretting not having told anyone, as it was a bit lonely in NYC, but the last thing I wanted was more pressure.

Kirsty solved my last problem for me, of getting some cheap warm clothes I could throw away at the race start and gave me direction to Uniqlo. That was perfect and I got a cheap hat, gloves, top and track pants. After that headed to Central Park for the pre-race dinner where I loaded up with carbs and then back to the hotel for an early sleep.

Oh should also mention that I had got fanatical about not being dehydrated or too hydrated so I was going to the toilet every few hours to check the colour of mu urine and then drinking water until it was just the right shade between apple juice (dehydrated) and clear (too hydrated).

One benefit of no sleep the night before is I slept easily on the Saturday night and woke up just before my multiple alarms of iphone, alarm clock and hotel phone call at 4.45 am. Changed into my gear I’d laid out and we left the lobby at 5.30 am to catch the 6 am bus to Staten Island. The driver somehow managed to get lost driving there and circuled one block three times but eventually managed to get into the right lane for the tunnel. And around 6.45 am we made Staten Island.

Fort Wadsworth is divided up into three colour camps which match the route you take for the first few miles. I was orange, which was nice as we got to run on the top part of the bridge. Around 17,000 people in each camp mull about eating breakfast, queuing for portaloos and trying to stay warm. It was around six degrees so you needed those old clothes to stay warm. I had a book to read as I was in the final band to leave (based on my estimated time of 4 hours 45 mins) so had a wait of several hours there.

Me before the race. It was cold! You can get your gear delivered to the finish line, but you have to give it to UPS at least an hour before the start, and you need to stay warm the last hour so what everyone does is dump their warm clothes a few minutes before the start. The result is it looks like a refugee camp with 40,000 hats, tops, pants etc scattered everywhere. It all goes to charity though which is good.

Finally time to go to your corral and then the start line. This is the first time I have run without headphones and am nervous about both having no music but also not having the running app tell me every half km my distance, time and pace. But headphones are discouraged in the longer races and people had said you want to soak up the atmosphere. But it’s like being without your normal security blanket.

Also slightly freaking out that I miscalculated how many energy chomps I would need (I prefer them to the gels) and had to make a last minute decision to take one every three miles only. Was hoping it would be enough.

Anyway finally the gun goes, and we’re off.

You start with a two mile run over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The view to the left of Manhattan is spectacular. You are at maximum energy which is quite good as the bridge is the steepest vertical climb of the marathon. But all the training guides warn you not to run it too fast as you’ll tire yourself out. I do the first two miles in around 18 minutes and hit Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn crowd is great. They cheer and yell. They shout out support and your name or number. Hundreds of placards urging you on, and bands every quarter mile or so belting out songs. Best of all are the five year old kids holding out their hands for you to high five them as you go past. The energy you get from the crowd is contagious and you end up actually running too fast.

Brooklyn is pretty flat and straight for six miles or so, and then carries on near the East River until you hit the half way point just as you come to the Pulaksi Bridge that takes you into Queens. You run for two miles through Queens, and I adored the Queen sense of humour where they had signs such as “If a marathon was easy, it would be your mother”. Again the crowds are great.

The Queensboro Bridge from Queens into Manhattan is over a km long, and is a long gradual climb. I’m at my most tired at this point and a lot of people walk the bridge. But the thought of making Manhattan keeps me going and finally come off the bridge and turn the corner onto 1st Avenue. The crowds are massive here and several people deep. Again you get a boost from them, plus from the bands. However 1st avenue is arguably the hardest part of the race. Partly because it actually is a gradual uphill run (you would never realise this when cars are on the road, but do when you can see miles up the road) but the hardest part is you can’t see the end. It is dead straight from around 49th Street to 130th Street and seems never ending.

It is going up 1st Avenue that for the first time running my body really starts to ache. In the half marathons I had done, I was exhausted at the finish line, but my body was not too bad (probably because had not been running for long). But at around the 17 mile mark my knees, hips, ankles are all starting to really ache. However as my pace had slowed down, I wasn’t feeling exhausted. What this meant is that I didn’t really feel like stopping or walking. If you are exhausted and your heart rate is too high, then your body wants you to stop or walk. But if your legs are in pain, then the worst thing you can do is stop as that will just cause them to stiffen up and be worse.

So my pace was pretty slow by this point (my pace was around 28 minutes per 5 kms at first but at this stage was around 34 minutes per 5 kms. Then finally you hit bridge no 4, the Willis Avenue Bridge and go through the Bronx for around a mile and a half before crossing the final Madison Avenue Bridge back into Harlem and down 5th Avenue.

At this stage you’re at 21 miles and sort of think almost there, but then you realise five miles to go is still a long way and again it is the crowds and bands that keep you going. Hard to undersell what a difference the crowds make. Also have started to form some bonds with a few other runners who seem to be much the same pace as me and we chat a bit.

At mile 24 you have just crossed into Central Park. This is familiar territory for me and I start to speed up a bit. At mile 25 I can see the office towers at the end of Central Park not too far away. You exit onto 50th Street and head towards Columbus Circle where you enter Central Park again. Finally you see Mile 26 but still not quite there. The signs now count down every 100 metres and that helps as you then see the finish line in sight. Far too sore to speed up at this stage, but manage to keep running and with a satisfied smile on my face I cross the finish line, having managed to run the entire thing.

I get a fellow competitor to grab a photo of me (to avoid the outrageous charges for the official photos) and then limp off to get my bag. I estimate I made it in just under four and a half hours and sure enough got four hours 29 minutes and 54 seconds.  The average time was four hours 29 minutes so I’m pretty thrilled to have done that for my first ever marathon – especially as a year ago I couldn’t even run a km.

Unlike some races where you can collapse onto the grass afterwards and recover, here you have to keep walking. It is agony. You walk around a mile to pick up your bag and another mile out of Central Park and to the subway. Everyone is shuffling along slowly.  Probably took 45 minutes to cover two miles! On the subway scores of people are chatting to you about the race, and congratulating you. After a few minutes I get off at Times Square and slowly make the three blocks to the hotel. Then my God does that shower feel good, as does just lying on the bed.

Then it’s time to let the secret out, and I text and phone a few loved ones, before sharing on social media.  As almost no one even knew I wasn’t in New Zealand, quite a few surprised people.

I then hook up with a few other kiwis including David and Heather Carter and have a great night out celebrating. David was running to raise money for the Catwalk Spinal Cord Injury Trust. I still can hardly walk, and going up or down stairs is incredibly painful.

Around midnight I crash and the next day its the first of three fights back to Wellington.

Had a month off running after the race and I needed it. God knows how some people run a marathon every week. Not sure if I’ll ever do one again, but have enrolled for a couple of half marathons in February (Wellington) and March (Southern Lakes in Wanaka). I like the half marathon distance – you can do one without really damaging your body. But it was nice to be able to say I got to run the New York Marathon. If you ever want to run a marathon just once, it is definitely the one to do. The crowds are fantastic, the organisation is first class, and the route has some stunning views. Definitely some memories I’ll carry with me forever.