Harry Kerr 2010
Well, you have to feel proud of the team who represented the club at the Harry Kerr relay on Sunday, they were magnificent with Harry, Wacky and Marlene doing PBs; it was also Vanessa’s best on the track for a long time and Rachel’s PB for the season. You cannot ask more of people than that.
Harry played ‘uncle’ on Friday by dropping off Hannah at Huntly on his way up to his sister’s on Friday night whereas the rest of us left on Saturday in Rachel’s people mover. I have to say that the trip up, back & in the middle was one big laugh and I have a few more facial wrinkles from smiling so much.
We had enough food to feed a small village and I must have gained a stone in weight from eating so much cream cakes courtesy of Rachel; I am now a big fan of Yo Yos.
One thing we did learn though was not to get Tony to book us into a motel in future which is “just around the corner from the venue”; It took over 15mins by car Tony!
We picked up the race numbers on Friday evening and went back to the motel for dinner and settled down to watch the ABs play. As the won everybody turned in, in a happy frame of mind.
As I had to be up earlier than the rest for a judges meeting, I dressed in the dark and crept into the lounge. I turned on the lights which exploded with a bang and the resultant scream & expletives from me awoke everyone. I discovered the only good use of a cell phone is that it has a light which allowed us to check the fuses and call the owner, who restored lights for us.
Marlene sat watching the Tour de France whilst the rest went back to bed and I hitched a lift with Shirley & Dave Barber & their whirlwind daughter Alana. I found out latter that those who went back to bed, all fell asleep and had a mad dash to get to the track in time.
The morning was bitter cold and I drew the short straw by being placed in the shadow of the stand on an icy track. I had to be in my best form as there were two International judges amongst the six judges placed around the 400m track.
The event started with the only B Team (Auckland) plus Dave Sim’s boy just doing 3km and Quentin Rew attempting to qualify for the NZ squad in a 20km event. For those of you who have never seen Quentin walk, you are missing a treat. He’s only little and has little strides but man can he shift
Why we never entered a B Team beats me because, Arthur, Ivor, Trevor, Tom & I could have won that grade without breaking a sweat.
There were four A Grade teams, Auckland, Wellington, Taranaki and a composite team from Hamilton. Even if we had out the club’s fastest walkers we wouldn’t have won as their team comprised an ex NZ Olympian, ex NZ 50km champion, Alana Barber, a fast power walker, fast as he was he was their weak link and just in case anything went wrong, their anchor man was the commonwealth Silver medallist in 50km, Tony Sargisson.
The composite team comprised Matthew Holcraft the young lad who qualified for the Junior Olympics, Kelly Mabbutt, Sue Hoskin, Russell Smythe & Mark Gray. Mark has been away from walking for over 15yrs and is just making a comeback.
Wellington had Terri & Phillip Grimmett, Peter Bailey, John Leonard & Kevin (can’t think of his surname)
The team’s lead off with Mike Parker, Matthew Holcraft, Kevin & Marlene. The previous evening the team captain Vanessa sorted out the team order and put Marlene out first which was a good move as she’d been worried all week that she would let the team down being the slowest of the five. Going off first she didn’t have time to brood on things whilst others were racing.
The other thing that Vanessa did was to ask what time each member would do their 10km in. Vanessa & Wacky opted for 60min, Rachel was told she was down for 55min, Harry not being there was down for 63min & Marlene had opted for 65min with a total team time of 5hr 03min. At the end of the race, Wacky & Marlene went 47secs under their time with Harry 46sec & Vanessa 29sec under, only Rachel went over a bit but as she had the fastest time anyway we can’t complain about that. The team’s time ended up at 5hr 00min 50sec. So how good is that?
In the actual race, Mike Parker & Matthew went off at a blistering pace with Marlene in third and Kevin fourth. It stayed like that for 4km when Kevin overtook Marlene who tucked in behind him for the next 4km before he slowly pulled away and ended up about 80m in front at the changeover when Harry took over. I will say at this point that there were no ‘Naki changeovers in this race, this was deadly serious. In the meantime Mike & Matthew must have been at least five laps ahead of the field.
To me Harry was a revelation, no more long strides and bent knees today. He had shorter strides, quick turnover and the ‘bounce’. It is amazing how he has picked things up after a couple of coaching sessions and a lot of determination. Look out you speedsters once he has built up his fitness and lengthened his stride. Anyway he quickly walked down the Wellington guy and lapped him a couple of times before he handed over to Wacky.
As we all know Wacky is a slow starter and despite a half hour warm up he was again today. Sue Hoskin was over half a lap ahead of him and increasing her lead when suddenly after about 10 laps he went into overdrive and mowed her down and even lapped her before the end.
Vanessa took over and ground out her 10km decreasing the gap on the composite team before handing over to Rachel who despite lapping the composite team just had too much to do and we ended up about three laps behind them. Matthew was the difference to that team because the rest of them were on a par with us; they were around 7min faster at the end.
So the results were Auckland 1st, Taranaki 2nd & Wellington 3rd. Three of our team went under 60min, Harry did 62 and Marlene the slowest did 64 which was fast enough to break her own NZ record by 38sec. Sue Hoskin broke the NZ record in the 55-59 age group and Mike Parker broke the NZ record in his age group which was held by Eric Kemsley (sorry about that Eric).
In the after race presentation they had Harry Kerr’s grandson there who spoke about his siblings, father and grandfather. It would appear Harry had the ideal physique for walking but he also had the hard mental toughness to succeed at the highest level.
Alana took photos of all the teams and promised to send the Taranaki ones to us. The trip back was uneventful and I bet they all had a good night’s sleep to sooth their aching bodies after a job well done.
Bystander
