What a hardy or stupid bunch we are to have walked 5km and 10km distances on Sunday morning in very strong cross to frontal winds which got stronger towards the end of the Seniors distance, it was certainly Brass Monkey conditions that morning.
Except for Peter Fox who drove through winds and rain from Hawera to take part, the rest of us had been lulled into a false sense of security as we left New Plymouth with the sun blazing down and not a breath of wind to be felt. It was quite a shock to the system when we stepped out of our vehicles in Carrs Road to be greeted by winds that were positively freezing.
Many of us had a rapid re-think as to what we were going to wear for the race and it was quite interesting to see the assortment of garb worn by the 21 brave souls.
There was Anne, Denise, Francis, Mary & Sue wearing thick parkas with hoods up, Tom, Ivor, Dave, Neil & myself, in nylon parkas (I kept my track pants on as well) and many wore gloves and hats, with only a couple wearing ‘skins’ as I believe they are called for the legs.
At the other end of the scale you had the iron men & woman such as Vanessa, Tanya & Eric in the club singlet although I did see a slight showing of thermal beneath at least one of them and then there was Phil practically naked inured to the cold from his harrier days so he told us. The rest just wore the club shirt with possibly a thermal underneath, even Arthur whose blood is obviously a lot thicker than mine.
We all lined up for the starter who used good initiative to have us going off together instead of the usual handicap start. Having performed this function he then scurried into a large car to join the lap keeper to keep warm. It must have worked because you could hardly see them for the steamed up windows.
Each lap was 2.5km with a turn around at the 1.25km marks. Eric led all the way and Vanessa was next followed by Phil who struggled the whole race to catch her; he did close the gap quite considerably around the 6km mark but Vanessa wasn’t having any of that and pulled away from him again and stayed in front for the rest of the race.
Peter Fox doing his first 10km race in 30 years was quite content to get into a nice rhythm but he did say afterwards that during the last lap his legs were turning to jelly; mine are like that after 1km and it’s many, many moons since I walked 62mins for 10km as Peter did today.
Tony punched his way around the course with Marlene slip streaming behind him for about 5km and then she started to drop off as he wound up the pace. Wacky who was strolling along behind the pair of them got serious after about 5km and reeled them both in and passed them and carried on to pass Peter and Phil to come in behind Vanessa. For some while Tanya & Neil walked together before Neil surged ahead but after the initial gap he created he never increased it as Tanya responded sufficient to hold the distance but not enough to catch him.
It was good to see Jeff back out there after his long enforced layoff and although he walked slowly (for him) he was still to good for most of us and ended up not far behind Marlene.
Anne Fraser stayed about 100yds behind Tanya all race and looked quite comfortable doing her thing. Dave after his starting burst dropped back and walked the rest of the race on his own but despite his age status elected to do the 10km distance; bad decision in those conditions Dave.
My nemesis Arthur, slowly pulled away from me but after the first turn around I thought I was closing the gap and even discarded my parka to cut out the drag. However it must have been a mirage because as I turned for the last time he must have been at least 3 mins ahead. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of a big bowl of soup at Helen’s and not let Tom pass me which I just about managed to do.
Sue & Ivor walked together before Sue took off but she only got about 100m ahead and that’s where Ivor held her until the end.
Denise & Mary and Francis & Anne Burrell obviously decided that under the conditions it would be stupid to worry about fast times and much better to catch up on local gossip, so chattered all the way around.
After we all finished safely it was a race for Helen’s car park and her soup which I unashamedly say I won. True to her track record Helen put on a great urn of hot delicious soup and sitting in her warm ‘playroom’ eating all the goodies on display and talking with friends, the recent cold was soon a memory.
There was a lot of talk afterwards by our President about ‘burglars’ and cases of wine changing hands but I am sure Dave will say that he is getting the handicaps right after a few trial runs and wine just doesn’t come into it.
Our thanks go to Marion and Trevor for their sterling work on the timekeeping/lap recording and to Helen & Doug for the after race hospitality
We wish Peter and his wife a good trip to the UK and look forward to seeing him out there with us again in July.
Results:
