Wind Wand Walk 2007
The Taranaki Race Walkers “Winter” program got underway with it’s Wind Wand Walk on Easter Sunday. I use the term Winter very loosely because this was one of those Autumn days in the 'Naki that are just hard to beat. We don’t treat this first walk as a race, so you actually get a chance to soak in the sights. The sea was calmer than Lake Taupo, there was a gentle zephyr from the North and the sun beat down on the boats becalmed out at sea.
A fantastic turnout of 22 walkers for our first outing, with 3 new members Gaylene, Tanya and Sandra – thank you Ann. Thank you to Trevor and Francis for time-keeping and Sue for being the interactive cone and wind wand.
Walkers were given the choice of a 5K or 10K, with times given for both. Excellent for the handicapper to see how people are progressing and who is trying to sandbag early in the season.
Glenn Burrell was in excellent form and did the 5K in 23’11 and carried on to do the 10K in 46’23. Eric and Jeff were second and third across the line. Great to see Eric back out there again after his ham string problems, slow time by his standards (28’53) but hopefully on the way to recovery. Good to see Jeff back and raring to go, mind you a time of 62’15 for the 10K means that he will be fighting to stay ahead of Vanessa this season – should be an interesting battle.
Well done to the Marathon people who did a 4 hours 30 training walk on Saturday, but then managed to come and walk on the Sunday. Dave Wackrow went one better, he was in the middle of his 4½ hour walk, did the 10K in 67’30 then carried on to complete his marathon training. Really hope you do well at Rotorua Dave, predicting a 4 hours 40 for him.
One last word, thank you to Mike for the videoing, he went beyond the call of duty. I am sure we all wish him a speedy recovery from the traumas of the day. We couldn’t understand a lot of what he was saying but apparently whilst filming he was flashed by the great white whale of the walkway.
Results:
