| An excellent turnout of Napier Harriers resulted in ten selections battling for the Green Shield at the Dolbel Estate on Springfield Road. This year three relay teams from the Hastings club took advantage of the extra racing and joined the challenge. The course produced little evidence of the recent celestial irrigation and the little brook snared no victims. The winning combination of Eric Speakman, Sarah Starkey, Mark Speakman and Rachel Town performed above expectations and were worthy recipients of the Green Shield for 2005.
The thirteen team relay commenced with a battle over two laps by the team captains. Top ranked runner Daniel Wallis set a torrid pace and eventually spreadeagled his rivals. Appreciating the good footing, Wallis (13.00) was 45 seconds quicker than last year. Stefan Smith crossed 13 seconds adrift, followed by Steven Smith (13.46) with Ryan Woolley on his tail. Eric Speakman crossed in ninth place, and was attracting little notice conceding over two minutes on the leading combination.
Taking over from Wallis, Anieke Engels (8.17) stretched their lead to a huge 2 minutes over a 2km lap. Unfortunately their team ran in a different order than originally intended and this created a false impression at this stage. Laura Mohi (Hastings) ran 8.05 to record the fastest lap and catapulted her team from 10th into second place. Finishing third was Fraser Harris, who had only conceded one place, while an excellent lap from Sarah Starkey (8.51) had brought her team into contention.
Steve Lindsay (16.33) carried on the good work for the runaway leaders and pundits believed the contest was over. Returning from an injury break, Mark Speakman (15.16) had other thoughts and cut the lead to 1 minute 29 seconds. Kane Green (15.04) recorded the fastest time for this lap and thus zoomed his team up eight places to finish third. Likewise strong efforts from Caleb Milne (16.05) and Ashley Aitken (16.12) promoted their teams up four places and into consideration.
Ten year old Natasha Town-Warner running the glory lap raced off with the huge advantage before her cousin Rachel Town began the pursuit. In the best tradition of the hound and the hare, Rachel caught her young cousin 300 metres before the finish and went on to win by 26 seconds. The winning team finished in 48.17, which was 17 seconds slower than the previous year. The consistently high performing Laura Nagel (8.12) gained three places on the lap to bring her team home in third place, 21 seconds adrift of Town-Warner. Hastings runners Nikki Powell and Tom Biss shared the fastest time for the final lap just one second quicker than Nagel.
report Trevor Fulton
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