21 half marathons before 21
A Woolf Fisher First-in-Family AUT scholarship student has achieved an incredible feat of running 21 half marathons before her 21st birthday.
Claudia Raven, who is studying for a Bachelor of Sport and Recreation, made it her goal to run 21 half marathons before she turned 21. She achieved this on 18 March, just 15 days before her birthday.
The final-year student’s number-oriented goal setting started in her first year of studying at AUT, when she decided to start running. She ran every day from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017, calling this ‘run 365’.
“It got to August 2017 and I’d done 8 half marathons. I then decided to do 21 half marathons before I turned 21 as my new goal; 21 before 21,” she said.
By September, Claudia had 13 half marathons left to run before her birthday on 2 April. Due to a summer job where she worked over 100 hours a week, Claudia didn’t have time to run in November and December, which means she ran a half marathon almost every fortnight between January and March.
Although it was hard at times, and sleep-ins were not on the cards, Claudia says it was all worth it.
“Running is like studying, you have to commit to it like any job or paper at university. I worked towards a goal, and it was so much more than just a physical achievement,” she said.
Claudia says that the highlight of it all was achieving her personal best of 1 hour and 52 minutes at her last run, the Coatesville half marathon. She set this goal in her very first half marathon, the Rotorua half marathon, where she ran the marathon in 1 hour and 54 minutes.
“My family and friends were there to support me, and achieving my personal best made it so real.”
Currently doing a placement at Eden Park, working under the commercial manager, Claudia has already set a new goal to run 2018km this year, she is already on track with 500km clocked up so far.