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The Napier Harrier Club held their third open handicap event of the season on Saturday. Run in conjunction with Hastings Harriers on Joll’s Farm at Crownthorpe, the event proved very successful. It was the first time the Napier club had used the property and there was plenty of very positive feedback about the course and its presentation. The Joll’s had certainly done an excellent job of preparing the venue.
As the event was run on the ‘open handicap’ basis, where starting later handicaps the faster runners, the Senior/Veteran Men’s race was run first. This was the longest event at 9km, and it was two of the slower athletes who turned it into a real race. Starting together off a handicap of 5:15, Alan Heywood and Craig Anderson battled all the way around the course, catching the earlier runners part way into the third lap, and swapping the lead with each other at various stages as each struggled to press some domination over the other. Coming up the big hill toward the end of the last lap it was Heywood who proved the stronger and he gradually pulled away to win his first Harrier race, by 17 seconds over Anderson, with Hastings’ Josh Barber closing very fast, off a handicap of 16:25, for third home. Barber’s time was the fastest recorded for the course with Napier’s Craig Mathers second fastest and his club-mate Mark Speakman recording third fastest.
All the under 16 grades raced at the same time, and it was Napier under 14/16 girl, Dianna Best who lead all the way from ‘go’ to cross the line 15 seconds ahead of Shayna Heywood, racing in the same grade, who had started 1:20 behind her. Hastings under 12 runner Ben Barry was next to cross the line having started 4:20 behind, to win his section. Second under 12 was Napier’s Brendan Speakman 13 seconds adrift, with Heywood’s sister Aleesha third under 12, 1 second further back. Fastest time in the girls under 14/16 grade was recorded by Napier’s Sonya Clark with Hastings Jo Wright second and Napier’s Alanna Hambleton third. Andre Smith was the first under 14/16 boy home, 18 seconds clear of club-mate Aaron Corney who was well clear of Kane Green in third, although Green recorded the fastest time with Smith second fastest and Corney third.
The senior/Vet women raced over 2 laps for 6km. Hastings’ Dianne Barclay made the most of her 1:28 handicap to head the field home, just beating Napier’s Adele Marsh to the line by 8 seconds, with only 7 seconds further back to Marsh’s club-mate Gina Finlayson. Marsh had run from a 2:45 handicap to catch Finlayson who started from ‘go’. Andrea Williams, Hastings, recorded fastest time in this race with Napier’s Jo Cavanagh and Annika Edmondson second and third respectively.
It was interesting to watch the Hastings club inserting their own names on to the handicap start list, and asking each other how hard they intended running before setting their own handicaps. Is this really racing? Not in my books. Racing is when you run your hardest to finish as high up the field as you possibly can, and it just makes it more interesting if you have to overcome some one elses subjective opinion of where you fit into the ‘scheme of things’. Apparently Hastings have not done much handicap racing before, perhaps this is why they have struggled over the years to attract the more social runners, after all, you don’t have much chance to win a normal race when you are racing against the county’s best runners, with no handicap! At least with our handicap systems any one has a chance of winning. Is it more fun to win this way than to run your hardest knowing you have no chance of success? If you had seen Alan Heywood’s face after the race on Saturday you wouldn’t have to ask the question.
It was also great to see so many Napier singlets there. You all looked fantastic. It was quite a sight to see so many yellow singlets spreading across the paddock in front of me as the fields all caught up with each other. It was also noticeable that most of our runners were wearing their club uniforms, where as many of the Hastings athletes were not. I’m glad so many of us have the pride to wear our club singlets whenever we race and I also believe that this says something about our club.
report Mark Speakman
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