National Road Relay

Napier Harrier Club were the only Hawke's Bay-Gisborne Centre representative at the 31st New Zealand Road Relay Championships at Timaru. The team flew to Christchurch and motored the last 160kms on Friday morning. During the afternoon they drove around the 'Round the Gorges Relay' course and were immediately apprehensive as the opening section of the first leg was full of many testing ups and downs which weren't displayed on the course profile. Luckily the rest of the loop circuit resembled the course profile, although half way around the course the team's mini-bus encountered a fast moving cold front, which highlighted just how much the gusty nor-westers were possibly going to play. The only other surprise was the bridge on lap three which hadn't been shown on the course map. Saturday dawned fine but the nor-wester was reasonably ferocious. The team got the Aorangi Stadium All Weather Track in time to see the 10 o'clockers head out onto the course, and everyone took the chance to catch up with Craig Eustace. Craig's Avon team were in our grade and although not strong he hoped their 'gun runner' on the first leg would get ahead of our 'gun'. Ten minutes before the 10.30 start Craig discovered their 'gun' was in the back of their mini bus 'spewing his guts out'. Eventually one of their team was required to run two legs. It seemed a life time between Cameron Poole-Smith receiving our yellow baton and the start. Eventually thirty-two teams were sent away, including fifteen teams in the Senior Mens B Grade. For five seconds Cameron was leading before realising a better option and was fifth as they left the stadium. His team mates all knew Cameron was in for a hard day as the wind was merciless, especially up the 2.5km straight to the changeover. Cam had looked confident until he got to Barton School but tied up and slipped 70 metres to finish in 11th place, recording 32.37 for the 8.4km leg. Eric Phimister was in his element with a long steep downhill and looked to have 'Takapuna' in his sights. After crossing the Pareora River bridge, Eric turned directly into the wind and a 2km straight to the next changeover. By now he was battling and not catching 'Takapuna' but was passing the first of the 10 o'clockers. He competed the 8.3km leg in 32.20 and kept the team in 11th place. Craig Mathers had received the difficult assignment of tackling the Pareora Gorge which required a 140 metre steady climb before a steep decent. Once over the bridge, Craig tore uphill brilliantly to pass both Timaru and Takapuna before reaching the summit. Sadly running downhill isn't one of Craig's better assists and Takapuna regained the initiative by 250 metres before Craig finished the 7.1km lap in 10th place. Napier's outstanding performance came from Eric Speckman running the 10.8km fourth lap straight into the gusty nor-wester in warm conditions. He overhauled three opposing teams on the lap, to have Napier up to seventh place at the half way stage. Firstly he passed Hill City, then Takapuna and finally Wellington Scottish. Eric had targetted the Junior Mens lap record of 38.22, but in such adverse weather conditions his 38.38 was marvellous. The Napier team at this stage were seven minutes over their pre-race estimate, because of the difficult conditions. Stephen Lindsay was the first to go under his lap estimate as he was the first to get any advantage from the breeze. He did drop a place to Wellington Scottish over the 6km lap which he ground out in 25.18. John Craven kept up his impressive relay reputation with another strong effort to record 28.59 on the 7.7km sixth lap. He was assisted by a long downhill and tail wind but now heat was becoming an adverse factor. John dropped a place and was left with a permanent reminder of the relay. When the Ariki runner caught him and went pass, John jumped into the slipstream and tried to hung on. The Ariki runner took offence to this tactic and threatened to do John some harm. John also had to contend with the leading A Grade runners, who had started at 11am, coming through. Our debutant Niall McCormack was given the difficult task of a steep one kilometre climb, raising 70 metres. During this exercise, he was burdened with many A Graders flying pass as well as a good Hill City youngster in our grade. At the top of the climb, the half way stage of the lap, Niall was disgusted to find the wind had changed 180 degrees, and although he was dropping down the other side he still had to work hard into a steady breeze. He finished the 7.6km lap in tenth place in 32.22. On the last leg back to the Arorangi Stadium, Trevor Fulton bowled along steadily until his resistence gave out and he had two quick walks before finally competing the 9.3km in 36.18. The only time the wind was a trouble was over the first 1½ kms on the anchor leg. The Napier team finished the 65.2km loop course in 4.16.24 and tenth place in the 15 strong Senior Mens B Grade, which was marvellous result considering there was six over 50 runners in this grade, of which four were in the Napier combination. The time was seven minutes over the optimistic pre race estimate. In conjunction with the National championships was the 21st Timaru Round the Gorges Road Relay. Napier Harriers were amongst the 25 teams in C Grade competing for the SCHMC Baton. Napier finished in third place behind Wellington Scottish C and Tasman Tigers A. They never knew at any stage where they stood in this grade, but probably were leading after Eric Speakman's lap. The eight man Napier team were sponsored by NZCT and Southern Trust. Over the weekend they caught up with many old acquaintances, including ex-clubmates Colin McLauchlan, Ken Moloney, Ryan Woolley, Stefan Smith, Caleb Milne, Chris Corney and Annika Edmondson. Ken won a gold and Chris a bronze in the masters, Ryan a bronze in the M19 grade and Stefan had the overall fastest time on lap 6. Six team members managed the tradition Sunday recovery run at 6.30am, before sitting down to witness another national sporting embarrassment. The rollercoaster landing and bumpy lift off at Wellington just added more talking points for the weekend. As our outward flight home was delayed, therefore all the waiting Bay folk were ecstatic when a text came through 38-35. 'Go Bay'. Finally a word about the ninth member of the tour party, the manager Ian Finlayson. He did a great job, no one got lost, they all ate well, they encountered no penalties, they kept to our schedule and the trip went under budget. It was suggested that the 2009 relay championships will be on this same course instead of Takehe-Akaroa. It is a good course, well organised, transport management was brilliant, and the possible only complaint came from the prizegiving, which turned into a rambling shambles.

Men's B Grade - 10th Napier Harriers 1 Final Time: 4:16:24

Athlete	Time	Grade Place	O/all Place
Cameron Poole-Smith	32:37	1 JM	31
Eric Phimister	32:20	2 M50	33
Craig Mathers	29:50	17 SM	32
Eric Speakman	38:39	1 JM	22
Stephen Lindsay	25:18	8 M50	59
John Craven	28:58	2 M50	46
Niall McCormack	32:22	11 MM	59
Trevor Fulton	36:20	9 M50	72