Club Champs Day 1 - 5 Km 2010
What a fantastic morning greeted us for this year’s 1st day of the Club Championships. I had, probably foolishly, promised a day without a Southerly. Even I was surprised to have such an amazing day, glorious sunshine and not a breath of wind – so be prepared for a roaring Southerly next year! The mountain came out in all its glory just to cap the whole day off – why would you live anywhere else on a day like this!
The club Champions over 5K were Eric in 26 minutes 55; Rachel in 27 minutes 9 and Tom who did 38 minutes 8. In the 3K for the 80 plus age group, Arthur stormed home in 22m 53s.
Today the moment the gun went so did Peter Fox, I thought the hounds were chasing him up the road, because for sometime nobody else was! By the end of the first lap of 1.25K, Eric had restored the norm and had gone into a comfortable lead and Rachel was closing on Peter. By the halfway mark, Rachel had also gone past Peter. Eric didn’t have to worry anymore about Mr. Fox, but he must have got a fright by the foxy lady in hot pursuit of him. Rachel was only 14 seconds behind at the finish and Eric needed a sub 27 to beat her. Peter must have had a similar fright because Vanessa closed within 17 seconds by the end. It must have been a blistering final lap because when I saw them with 1K to go, Peter had a good lead on Dave followed by Vanessa.
One of the best races of the day was between Tony, Marlene, Serena, Alan and Sandra. In the first uphill section, Alan got the lead at the half K mark with better uphill strength. Within 200 metres of the turn, Alan had been overtaken by all of them! Tony pulled away with everybody else chasing. In the second uphill section, Alan again overtook Sandra and Serena and closed on Marlene and Tony; Anne was also in hot pursuit at this time. Once again the downhill section came and everybody shot past Alan again. Tony showed everybody a clean set of heels as he wound up the big wheel. Marlene had Serena and Sandra chasing her (they were also battling hard because of same age group) and Alan just hung in with Anne breathing down his neck. In the end Sandra’s years of experience came to the fore and she managed to go past Serena and Marlene. Some excellent racing.
Although this is a championship event, we also earn points towards the end of year Points Trophy. Sandra easily won the 7 points today with an excellent performance of 32m15, a whole 3 minutes better than handicap! Well done Sandra this is an excellent improvement and fantastic to see you injury free – we all hope you stay this way, we have missed you. I can assure everybody that I have not been bribed by any maidens and it is purely coincidental that the points places were Sandra, Anne, Serena, Vanessa, Rachel. Harry also got 3 points because even at 5 decimal places he and Rachel were tied!
I am not sure that we have had such a close Points Trophy as this year. After 11 events; Arthur, Tom and Dave are all on 27 points, Helen and Rachel 26 and then Mike and Serena have 25. Remember it is participation and performance that win the trophy. Dave currently has the trophy and he isn’t giving it back without a fight – he has done every event so far and is deservedly tied for first place. So if you want the trophy ensure you do the rest of this year’s program and get your name to Michelle for the Marton to Wanganui relay. Oh yes don’t forget who the handicapper is as well.
Results
