Club News

After a few hiccups getting the team together, we headed off with 11 instead of 12 on the Friday morning. The trip started off slowly, only getting from Tawa to Mana before stopping so that Lyndon could buy McDonalds for breakfast. Next stop at the ice cream shop north of Levin where gigantic fruit ice creams were consumed. Someone noticed that one of the flavours available was chilli and lime and much discussion was had about how this might taste. This led to a bet being made between Lyndon, Lachlan, Sean and Martin that whoever lost at the mini-golf on the way home would have to eat one of these chilli lime ice creams.

We arrived in New Plymouth mid afternoon and settled into the motel. The young lads and a couple of the older lads went off to play soccer, resulting in Brian coming back with a hamstring injury and muttering about maybe not being able to run, “but it should be all right”.

Realistically we were down to 10 runners instead of the initial planned team of 12. Fortunately Craig, who was in staying with family in New Plymouth, talked his brother-in-law, Tony Freeman (a keen soccer player), into running one of the legs.

Early morning start, 2.30am. Friday had been very hot and it was still very warm even at that time. Lyndon was first off the blocks and did a very good run, followed by Mark who managed to injure his ankle. Steve was next and in hindsight he shouldn’t have had anything to eat before the race as he left it behind at the end of his run. Sean and then Sheryne ran at dawn and there were no dramas for them. Linda did a personal best on her 5k run. Craig was up next and he ended up doing three legs as Brian had realised he was not ”going to be all right” after all. Steve then did his second leg and managed to keep it all together this time. Martin was the next to streak off and managed under 4 minute k’s, along with Sean, Lachlan and Mark. Meanwhile Miles had been stiffening up after his first run but he was up next and bit the bullet. Sheryne then ran her second leg and had the unfortunate luck to have to run through smoke from a huge burn-off at the side of the road. We then woke up Lyndon for the next leg. He had been asleep in the back of the van since finishing his first run. Next up was our soccer player who did very well considering he wasn’t a “runner”. After consuming some Nurofen for his injury, Mark bravely ran his second leg. The day was pretty hot by now and Lachlan was next up for what he thought was an 11.8k leg. It was the hilliest and one of the longest legs and unfortunately one of those that was longer than specified, ending up at 12.5k. This also happened to Mark, Sean and Martin. Martin ran again, a 4k sprint, followed by Craig who did the honours of the final leg (his third). Craig is now injured (third time not lucky).

While Craig was doing the final leg the rest of us in the van were driving madly round the streets to try and catch up with him. The trouble was that there are quite a few one-way streets in the city and the runners weren’t going the same way as the traffic. We got lost, went round a few blocks and finally ended up at the finish carpark. Then it was a mad dash to catch Craig as we all ran over the finish line together.

Our finishing time was 11 hours, 20 minutes and we came fourth.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and then we headed out to a Mongolian restaurant for a nice dinner.

Next day the trip home was spent playing the rich list, amongst other games, which resulted in a few arguments and heated debate. All in good fun though.

We stopped at Wanganui to play mini-golf. Lachlan lost the bet and reluctantly ate the chilli lime ice cream.

A good time was had by all. It was a well organized event but the atmosphere was not as good as Taupo, probably due to the fact that there were 1400 in the mountain race and there are about 5,000 at Taupo. Also, no one else had water guns.

Leg HOW HARD AND FINISH TIMES Distance FirstName LastName Est Times 1 MEDIUM 36.30 8.1 LYNDON MCGAUGHRAN 32.30 2 MEDIUM 43.02 9.5 MARK HANDLEY 42.30 3 MEDIUM 24.11 5.1 STEVE BLIGH 22.40 4 MEDIUM 42.11 10.4 SEAN MCCRUDDEN 39.40 5 EASY 23.99 4.9 SHERYNE BEEBY 23.40 6 EASY 34.37 6.2 MILES COVERDALE 28.20 7 EASY 27.43 5.0 LINDA BLIGH 32.30 8 MEDIUM 24.16 6.1 CRAIG MORRISON 26.00 9 MEDIUM 25.25 6.6 LACHLAN RUSBRIDGE 25.30 10 EASY 22.17 5.6 CRAIG MORRISON 26.30 11 EASY 43.00 9.4 STEVE BLIGH 38.00 12 MEDIUM 43.47 11.1 MARTIN MCCRUDDEN 45.30 13 EASY 42.10 7.3 MILES COVERDALE 33.40 14 EASY 44.09 8.3 SHERYN BEEBY 37.30 15 EASY 24.07 5.4 LYNDON MCGAUGHRAN 25.40 16 EASY 31.14 5.8 TONY FREEMAN 26.00 17 MEDIUM 40.23 8.5 MARK HANDLEY 34.40 18 HARD 51.12 11.8 LACHLAN RUSBRIDGE 49.30 19 HARD 29.31 7.2 SEAN MCCRUDDEN 25.40 20 MEDIUM 11.13 3.0 MARTIN MCCRUDDEN 10.30 21 MEDIUM 20.28 5.0 CRAIG MORRISON 19.30 TOTAL 11.20.28 4TH 10.46.00