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| G14 winner Jodi Nagel heads off - photo Tim Creagh |
Queen’s Birthday Monday saw bitterly cold conditions, but thankfully no rain and little wind - near perfect conditions for the culmination of the Napier Harrier Club’s 75th Jubilee weekend, the Queen’s Birthday Road Races.
All the races were held on an open handicap basis with the slower athletes starting first and the faster runners starting at intervals behind them and trying to run them down. First on the streets were the under 13 runners, racing over 2km, and it was first blood to Hastings Harriers with Ella McKay. Running off a 1:30 handicap, Ella had only her little sister ahead of her on the course, but stayed ahead of the other 16 athletes to take a comfortable 46 second victory over Napier’s Jinny Lee (2:00), with club mate Charlee Taylor (3:00) seven seconds adrift in third. Fastest ties went to Napier’s Harry Crichton (8:03) and Georgia Creagh (7:57).
The under 15, under 17 and under 20 boys while all running for different trophies, ran off the same handicap sheet, over a single 4.5km lap. Under 17 Brendan Speakman, running off a 4 minute handicap ran his way through the field and just held out big brother, under 20 winner Eric speakman (6:00), by 3 seconds in the closest finish of the day. The winner of last weekend’s Vosseller Shield junior race in Wellington, Ben Barry (5:30) was second under 20 and third overall with Jason Pearson first of the under 15 boys home, and fourth across the line overall. Brendan and Eric were fastest in their grades with Brendan running 16:08 and Eric running 14:11 - the fastest time for junior since 1993, but still well short of the 13:37 race record set by Ken Maloney in 1981. Toa Elphick’s 17:14 was the fastest by an under 15.
The Senior and Masters Men run over two laps of the course, and local Policeman Malcolm Lochrie made no contest of it, running from the front of the field off 30 seconds and leading all the way to the finish line, embarrassing the club handicapper and winning by a huge 2 minutes and three seconds. Next home was ex Napier Harrier Peter Gillies, with Niall McCormack 6 seconds back in third. It has been many years since the race saw someone run under 30 minutes but this year Scottish Harriers Stefan Smith ran 29:44 for fastest time, with club mate Ryan Wolley just missing the mark with 30:20.
All the women from under 15’s through to Masters Women run a single lap off the same handicap sheet. A large field of 27 eagerly awaited their allotted start time, but unfortunately for the rest of the field, front runner Emily Stuart relished the conditions and provided the handicappers with further embarrassment by cleaning up her opposition, hitting the line an amazing 4:09 ahead of second placed Jodi Nagel, with another 1:06 back to third placed AnnMarie Earwicker. Emily’s win was a classic example of how a little hard training can show huge improvements over a relatively short time. Jodi had the pleasure of winning the under 15’s race, while Monica Burnard won the under 17’s and Aleesha Heywood the under 20’s. NZ Junior Mountain Running Champion Rochelle Sceats set a new W19 course record at 16:26 (although Laura Nagel’s W16 record is still faster at 16:22) while other fastest times went to under 15 Annie Creagh (19:14), under 17 Monica Burnard (19:05), Senior Women Emma Mackie (18:30) and Masters Women Lee-Anne Sharp (17:27).
In all their were 76 starters on the day.
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