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While the weather was doing it's best to thwart local sport on Saturday, a large group of Napier Harriers were not deterred. Despite knowing that the 'Marett Madness' event was to include a river crossing, 33 runners turned out for the annual relay.
As it happened, the river was too high to safely allow a crossing, but the athletes were not spared a dunking in the river. The course markers had conspired to still get the athletes into the water by taking them across a small side stream away from the main river. The resulting crossing was somewhat less than would otherwise have been encountered but was none the less a well appreciated variation on what would have been a simple run along the stopbanks otherwise.
In the race itself, it was the club's Junior runners to the fore as the team of Josh Betty (Under 18), Laura Smidt (Under 14) and Eric Speakman (Under 12) came away with the coveted trophy.
The race involves evenly selected teams of three competing in relay fashion over the same lap. Each lap involved running the stopbanks of the Tutaekuri, between the Motorway and Waiohiki Bridges, and involved the one river crossing per lap.
The first lap was slightly longer as it took the runners across the motorway bridge before heading up the stopbanks on the far side of the river, through the river crossing then over the Waiohiki Bridge, and back to the start at the Motorway end. At the end of this first lap Chris Corney headed the field, but only by a small margin with Kevin Fisher recording second fastest time just 15 seconds behind and Darryl Strachan 17 seconds further back. Betty, one of only two junior runners to contest the first leg, ran a very solid leg to be in 8th of the 11 teams as he handed over to Smidt.
Leg two took the runners back in the opposite direction. Smidt produced an excellent run for her team, bringing them through to 6th, and recording second fastest time for this leg, just 11 seconds behind the experienced old Veteran, Craig Anderson. Sonya Clark recorded third fastest just 3 seconds behind Smidt.
The third and final leg was back in the opposite direction again with Smidt handing over to young Speakman. Speakman quickly caught the first couple of athletes and set about slowly reeling in the rest. In the end he ran the fastest time for the leg by 43 seconds and brought his team home a comfortable 1 minute 20 seconds ahead of the second place team of John Craven (Vet Men), Alanna Hambleton (under 14) and Haydn Schofer. Schofer (under 14) was second fastest for that leg, 20 seconds ahead of veteran runner Graham Edmondson. The third placed team consisted of Eric Phimister (VM), Hogan Green (under 14) and Shayna Heywood (under 14)
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