Sisters to run in New York City marathon
Training for the New York City Marathon are sisters Sharon King (left) and Gayle Bennett (right). Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
Two Golden Bay sisters, Gayle Bennett of Takaka and Sharon King of Rockville, are in training for the next New York City Marathon on Sunday 6 November.
It’s not only the world’s largest marathon but also regarded as one of the world’s most hotly contested road races. Over 150,000 athletes from all around the world apply for the 42km run, which traverses all of New York’s five boroughs, beginning in Staten Island and winding through Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx before ending at the Tavern on the Green in Manhattan’s Central Park.
Selection for the final 47,000 runners takes place in the form of a lottery. Gayle and Sharon had to wait two years, but this year secured their “guaranteed entry” as part of allocations given to their travel agent, who has so far booked 150 people on this year’s marathon.
Sharon felt inspired to enter after reading Kerre Woodham’s comical bestseller, Short Fat Chick to Marathon Runner, and felt there was no better time to do it than before she turned 50, which will happen this December. She soon convinced her older sister Gayle to join her on what has panned out as their 22-day trip of a lifetime, which will also take them to Philadelphia, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco and Hawaii.
In training for the big marathon the two have made use of local beaches, Milnthorpe Park and the Pupu Walkway.
“The last 18 weeks of training will be increasingly intensive for us,” said Gayle. “Speed and endurance—you train up in stages.”
These two are no strangers to the marathon scene. Sharon has run one every year for the last four years while Gayle just completed her eighth since 2003. Gayle’s best “race walk” time for the half-marathon is 2h 40min, while Sharon’s best running time for the half marathon is 2h 17min.
In preparation for the New York marathon, both women sought the advice of a podiatrist to make sure their running shoes fitted properly. The long and steep inclines up to the five major bridges along its marathon route always test runners and are the main reason why the course has seen so few world records broken. Notable exceptions have been Alberto Salazar (USA), who did the course in 2h 8.13min back in 1981, while three years earlier Grete Waitz (Norway) broke the women’s world record when she ran it in 2hrs 32.30min. The current defending champions are Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia and Edna Kiplagat of Kenya.
Sharon says she and Gayle will be coming in around the five-hour mark. “Anyone who does it in under five hours gets their name in The New York Times. That’d be nice.”
The New York City Marathon is part of the world series of big-five marathons, the others being London, Chicago, Boston and Berlin. Ever since the first New York City Marathon in 1970, when just 55 runners finished the race, the first Sunday in November is dedicated to the annual event, which involves several thousand volunteers and over two million spectators who turn out to line the course. Although it attracts many world-class athletes, it is notable for being open to amateurs and wannabes alike. All the clothes shed along the route by runners are gathered up and given to the homeless. The event is broadcast around the world to an estimated 315 million television viewers. Interestingly, as more and more amateurs have entered over the years, the average completion time has gone up from three hours to around five hours.
To give it a local perspective, the distance run equates to that from Takaka township to Billy King Creek at Pakawau, or from Nelson to Motueka.
“We’ll be beat for sure,” says Sharon. “But the biggest thing now along with the training is just keeping in one piece and not having any niggling injuries that could stop us doing our best on the day.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
