Rotorua Marathon 2006
This marathon has everything. It is a challenge with the hills; the weather is unpredictable; each of the last few kilometres is longer than a K, so why do people do it time and again?
The answer is probably a host of things –
•
The scenery
•The fact you go all the way around a Lake
•The support from the people of Rotorua
•You are always amongst fellow idiots
•To the Race Walkers though I think it is just the friendships. What a neat bunch of people to go away with – the support for each other, the laughter and the sharing of the success and disappointment.
Congratulations to everyone who did the marathon, it is a great achievement. 5 people from the club were placed in the first 25 of the Walking section. Individual results were –
Jeff Coach Wells 7th overall and 1st in old fogies over 60 – 4:50:03
Marcia Soanes in her 1st Marathon was 7th female – 4:59:28
Lorraine Eldershaw got a PB in 5:11:55
Valda Goodey in her first marathon a time of 5:11:55
Julie Griffin, her best Rotorua, 5:13:27
Kim Fougere, her best Rotorua, 5:24:50
Odette Herbert in her first marathon, a time of 5:26:50
Marion Dent took 4 minutes off her PB for 5:39:56
Dennis Hastie, best supporting actor, 5:39:56
It’s funny, when you look at the times above and the individual achievements, one only marvels at the success. When you actually talk to each of the people you get emotions from elation to disappointment. How can anybody be disappointed? Jeff – his second marathon in 2 months – what a time! Marcia, to get sub 5 in your 1st marathon! Lorraine and Marion – both PBs – excellent. Valda and Odette – first marathons – savour your achievement. Kim – you make it look pretty easy, great achievement especially not long since Mountain to Surf. Julie – yours was the gutsiest effort of the day – you had a bad patch in the second half, but you had the strength to get going again and finished very strongly – well done.
What does one say about the 10K walkers? Every one of them got a PB and they all walked well. Times were –
Wayne Loveridge – 51’41 – 1st walker.
Vanessa Lowl – 55’01 – 1st female and 2nd overall
Mike “twin” Nield – 55’01 3rd overall
Alan Clarke – 60’11
Marlene White - 64’43 – 1st real twin.
As one can imagine, it doesn’t look like it was 10K! My guess is about 9.3K. So just divide time by 0.93 to get accurate results. It may be a fun event (therefore why give times and transponders), but surely if it is run by Athletics NZ, you would think it wouldn’t take much to measure properly!
They say that a successful marathon is all in the planning and preparation. Everyone has their own ways of preparing and I had thought I had heard of most things. Apparently not though. Lorraine brought her egg timer but forgot the super glue. I never really understood the significance of both items, but my best guess is that the egg timer was going to be attached to a certain appendage (like a tassel) so that it could be swivelled easily every 2 minutes. Apparently Lorraine has such bad eyesight that this was the only way she could accurately measure the time per K. It never seemed to make sense to me either!
Most people managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep, but were kept awake at times by a noisy bed in one of the units. It is being denied but the safe money is on unit 2 shared by “Camp” Father and Jeffwee.
Finally a big thank you to everyone. The marathon was a team effort. The support in training, the support during the event and the fun afterwards. Also many thanks to Rachael for preparing and repairing the bodies. The biggest thank you goes to Julie (Mike’s far better half). She made sure everyone got a spot prize in the evening (what an expert shopper you are). Lorraine got another egg timer, Alan some nail clippers; there were various shades of glasses and bubbles. Julie also booked the restaurant for the evening – a fantastic meal; personally I have not had a better meal out for a long time.
The motel is booked for next year, so who is coming back? Please can we have some more men do the marathon – what a load of wimps – a 7 to 2 ratio!
