Building on her successes of 2007 & 2008 at Taranaki & NZ Master’s event level Marlene White set her sights higher to go for the six NZ records in her 60-64 age group. Knowing she wasn’t too far off them was an added incentive to train harder.
First up was the 10,000m track walk which she was able to do on the TET track in Inglewood during the Race Walking NZ championship race in January. That evening was an absolute scorcher with temperatures nearing 30°C with no wind, even the judges got sunburnt. This record was set in 1993 and despite the heat she broke it by nearly three minutes.
In March the 5,000m record went during the Taranaki Championship race, also on the Inglewood TET track. Then three days later on the brand new track in Tauranga in torrential rain during the NZ Master’s games she broke the 3000m record and set an event record as well.
Having broken all the track events she turned her attention to the road and broke the 15km record during the Taranaki Race Walking 50th Jubilee race in New Plymouth in June.
Two months later the 10km record fell on a very difficult course in Inglewood whilst competing in the Taranaki Road Championships.
She had two months to train for the hardest record, the 20km, where she had to make up 2 minutes on her previous best time for that distance. This race was an Athletics NZ event held over in Napier on a 1km straight course which meant she had to walk past each judge forty times. Besides NZ’s Chief Judge, there were two other International judges plus two A Grade judges.
However she held her nerve and in ideal conditions took it to the current record holder and led all the way to break the record by over a minute. The added bonus for her was that she never received any ‘Cautions’ from the judges scattered along the course.
She would like to thank all the club members and families who have given her so much support and encouragement during her races which helped her keep going despite the pain.
For the Record:
10,000m 24 January 2009 64m 50.96s
5,000m 3 March 2009 31m 19.96s
3,000m 6 March 2009 18m 05.37s
15km 1 June 2009 1h 39m 09s
10km 23 August 2009 1h 03 27s
20km 25 October 2009 2h 14m 15s
