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| The easiest way way to earn $40.is to challenge Stephen Day to a 100m race. |
15:20, December 15 2016
The 28-year-old has been slowly building his training back up after running at the Olympics in August.
He ran in a mile race in Hawaii last Saturday, before making a stunning run in the Hawaii Marathon a day later, completing the race in two hours, 27 minutes and 21 seconds.
He told Race Results Weekly he had needed to complete a 35-kilometre training run so decided to enter the marathon.
"I got to 35km and I said I'm thinking about the finisher's T-shirt," Carson said with a laugh.
"I wanted that finisher's T-shirt so I kept going. It was fun."
How he backs up from the marathon and the travel back will be seen when he competes in the elite men's race at 6.30pm on Saturday.
He'll face some stiff competition in New Zealand Mountain Running champion Dougal Thorburn, Wellington 10km road race champion Hiro Tanimoto and Wellington 10,000m track champion Rowan Hooper.
If Carson can run up to his personal best mile of 3.56 then he should win with plenty in hand, but that trio will be sure to push him as far as they can.
In the elite women's race, Manawatu's Kara Macdermid is the favourite, but Wellington runners Phoebe McKnight and Tina Harris will be doing all they can to ensure a local victory.
Macdermid is the New Zealand junior women's 5000m champion and has a mile PB of 4:39, while McKnight is only 15, but has a host of age-group records already to her name and her 1500m PB of 4.37 suggests she will provide stiff competition.
Harris won the last year's race comfortably in a time of 4.50, but her 1500m PB of 4.20 also suggests she can go much quicker than that.
Also there on the night will be Olympian Nikki Hamblin, although she will not compete in the main races.
