Sanson pounds out his PB

"I was on for a pretty good time with 10km to go and at that stage I was just going to run it in. I'd lost a lot of mental strength." Chris Sanson

Chris Sanson smashed his personal best at the Rotorua marathon, but it still wasn’t enough to win him the Rotorua marathon.

Manawatu’s Sanson finished second at Rotorua at the weekend, shaving 59 seconds off his personal best. It was the second year in a row he’s been runner-up at Rotorua, this year finishing in 2 hours 27 minutes 11 seconds.

Winner Saeki Makino from Japan was 5 minutes 13 seconds ahead of him, the fastest winning time since Jonathan Wyatt recorded 2:20:50 in 2001.

Sanson said he had mixed feelings after the race.

Sanson spoke to Makino before the race and Makino told him he was aiming to run 2 hours 20 minutes.

The two ran together, but once Makino took off, Sanson spent a lot of the 42km running on his own.

‘‘He went quick and I went with him,’’ Sanson said. ‘‘That gave me a gap on the other guys at halfway of about three and a half minutes back to third.

‘‘At that stage I was just running alone and I just finished the race really. I set an OK time.

‘‘I was on for a pretty good time with 10km to go and at that stage I was just going to run it in. I’d lost a lot of mental strength.’’

Running by himself for a long period was taxing, but if he had put the hammer down at the end of the race he would have had an even better time.

Sanson was 5 minutes 33 seconds in front of third-placed Jonathan Jackson.

It was good conditions for running at Rotorua, even though it is a notoriously hard course.

‘‘It’s probably one of the hardest ones in the country; it’s not exactly flat,’’ Sanson said. ’’It’s just hill after hill after hill.’’

Sanson has been targeting running the past six months, rather than triathlon training. He has lost weight and doing more run sessions has helped him improve.

He will run the Hawke’s Bay marathon this weekend, where he also finished second last year.

That was with two weeks off after the Rotorua run, but this year there is only a week’s break, which is not something he’d recommend.

Because it’s two tough runs in a week, he doesn’t have any set goals of how he wants to perform at Hawke’s Bay.

After this weekend he will take a break, but is targeting the Wellington marathon next month, which is the national championships, and he may head to on in Japan for a marathon at the end of the year.