Sisters complete New York Marathon
Finishing the world’s largest and most hotly contended road race, the New York Marathon, is an accomplishment that sisters Gayle Bennett of Takaka and Sharon King of Rockville can now proudly tick off.
They returned from the United States last week after competing on Sunday 6 November alongside 47,000 other runners, and finished together in 6 hours 7 minutes. Over two million spectators lined the 42km-long route, which traverses all New York’s five boroughs, beginning in Staten Island and winding through Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx before ending in Manhattan’s Central Park.
Gayle says she and her sister were separated into different starting packs so spent much of the race completely apart.
“Around the 30km mark, Sharon tapped me on the shoulder as I was overtaking her, head down, and we did the last 12km or so together. It was an amazing feeling to cross that line, even if it did take us a little longer than we hoped.”
Sharon, who mainly trained for the event off-road in Milnthorpe Park, said the super-hard concrete roads along the race route definitely took their toll.
“The last 10km was the hardest for me. My legs were in absolute agony from the jarring, and the pains were shooting up my back and into my head. It was extremely emotional crossing that finishing line.”
The New York Marathon is part of the world-series “big five”; the others are held in London, Chicago, Boston and Berlin. Although it attracts many world-class athletes – this year the 10-year record held by Tesfaye Jifar of Ethiopia was broken by Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya who ran it in 2hr 5min and 6sec - it is notable for being open to amateurs. Over 150,000 runners applied from all over the world this year with the final competitors chosen mainly by ballot, or in Gayle and Sharon’s case, by allocations made to their travel agent who secured them a guaranteed entry.
To get an idea of the distance Gayle and Sharon had to run, its equivalent is the road distance between Takaka and Billy King Creek, just past Pakawau. Sharon said the New York Marathon felt around five times harder than the half marathons she is used to. “But in the end I wasn’t injured, only thoroughly exhausted, and that left after a few days.”
After checking their results on the website, Gayle and Sharon now know they finished in 44,998th and 45,002th placings respectively.
“Where we came doesn’t matter at all,” said Sharon. “We finished it and that’s what counts. I won’t be doing another full marathon, that’s for sure, but I will be doing the Buller Half Marathon this summer, along with the Tinbum Triathlon at Pohara. That will complete my ‘trifecta’ and see me into my 50th year exactly as I planned, and that feels pretty good.”
Older sister Gayle has a similar sentiment. “I did the New York Marathon aged 56 as well as being a granny. This summer I’ll be doing the Buller Half Marathon again for the ninth year running. I can’t really complain!”
Gerard Hindmarsh
