2014 Kids Frenzy Beach Relay Owhiro Bay Sat 16 Aug

This event is organised by Jonathon Harper who looks after the Scottish J Team. It uses the beach area and surrounds at Owhiro Bay and is now in its third year.  The afternoon, which had fabulous weather, is primarily designed to give kids under 13 an afternoon of fun while their parents and caregivers compete in the Bays Relay which starts in Island Bay. The core of the programme is a relay covering a kilometre plus although because the course involves running across soft sand and a few obstacles it can be tough going.  To make sure the kids are occupied until the Bays Relay is done and dusted there is provision for some beach activity involving chucking a rock n’ stuff although on Saturday this part of the show wasn’t needed.  The great thing is that it is all free to entrants and virtually everybody gets a chocolate reward of some type.  See Jonathon’s full report.

 

 

 

 

2014 National XC Champs Halswell Quarry Christchurch Sat 9 Aug

Results

Callan Moody's dream season on Canterbury courses continued when he clinched his first New Zealand men's cross-country championships title.

The 26-year-old - a cardiac physiologist at Christchurch Hospital - won the Christchurch half-marathon in June and the New Balance 10km road race in Christchurch in May, and ran a carefully calculated race on the six-lap cross country circuit at Halswell Quarry on Saturday.

Moody, the national 5000m track silver medallist, snatched the lead on the fifth lap of the 12,000m men's race.

"I had stomach cramps early in the race but recovered and was feeling good so pushed a bit and found myself in the lead earlier than I expected," he said.

The former Otago athlete then put in another move on the uphill section of the last lap to increase his lead and secure a first New Zealand title.

"I have won some gold and silver medals previously, but this was my first championship title, so I'm very pleased with my run," Moody said.

A fast finishing Jonno Jackson (Auckland) grabbed second place ahead of Cantabrian Daniel Balchin.

Auckland won the men's team title, getting their best six runners all inside the top 17, taking the title from Canterbury, who, although taking three of the top four positions, could not get their remaining three runners high enough.

Camille Buscomb from Waikato BOP fought off a strong challenge by Rebecca Kingsford (Canterbury) and Annie Keown (Auckland) to take out her first senior women's cross country cross-country title to go with the 2013 road championships and two 3000m titles.

The three athletes ran together for the first 6km of the 8km race, before first Keown and then Kingsford were dropped, giving Buscomb, who narrowly missed selection for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 5000m, the title.

"Annie and Rebecca ran really well and I had to dig deep to stay in front of them," said the 24-year-old from Cambridge.

Although Waikato BOP had three in the top five, they did not have a fourth runner, and the team title went to Wellington.

Joshua Baan from Otago caused an upset in the junior men's 8km race, outsprinting favourite Geordie Beamish from Wanganui to take the title, adding to his junior 5000 track championships win. Jacob Priddey from Waikato BOP finished third.

Rosa Flanagan and Gabrielle Gray made it a quinella for Canterbury in the junior women's 6km. Flanagan was a clear winner, just two weeks after finishing seventh in the world junior 3000m steeplechase championships in Oregon, while Auckland's Audrey Gregan was third.

Cameron Avery (Canterbury) won the youth men's 6km from team-mate Matthew Prest and Harry Ewing (Waikato BOP).

Ari Graham was another Canterbury hometown winner in the youth women's 4km from Kelsey Forman (Wellington) and Harriet Bush (Canterbury).

Masters races were won by Mark Bailey and Sally Gibbs.

Source

These races had relatively small fields and in some case centres did not have sufficient numbers to make up a counting team. There were oustanding rauns from Rosa Flanagan in the Junior womens 6k race and from the amazing Sally Gibbs in the Masters womens race. Both Gibbs and Gabby O'Rourke also ran the Senior womens race finishing 5th and 7th respectively.

In the Junior mens 8k race it came down to the wire with Josh Baan (Otago) just piping the talented Geordie Beanish (Wanganui-Manawatu) at the post. It's a pity that Scottish Wellington in its write up of the event did not point out that Baan ocassionally turned out for Scottish when he was based in Palmerston North at high school.

Joshua Bann, winning the 5000m Junior track title at the 2014 T&F Champs in March

2014 Wellington Secondary Schools Road Races Heretaunga Tue 5 Aug

 

It was a bright and relatively windless day at Heretaunga for this event. There was a reasonable turnout of runners, and much better than the road relays held the week before at Trentham  All of the stars appeared to be present although a few may have stayed away choosing to save themselves for the National XC Champs in Christchurch four days later.  The first race was for the AWD crew most of whom appeared to be at the XC scratch race a few weeks earlier at Trentham. You have to admire the work of some of the AWD caregivers who handled their charges with patience and care.

 

Results

 

 

 

 



2014 Scottish Morning Wellington Waterfront Race Sat 2 August

About 30 people lined up for the start of this race which is the lowest number so far this year for this event. The gale force northerly probably contributed to the low turnout but who knows. Maybe today's club members are not the hardy soles they were in the past. But having said that the wind certainly would have made the waterfront course the worst place to run a race today which could explain why most only did 1 lap (5km). After all why flog yourself over 10k in impossible conditions when the times will be slow.

Results

One of a group of early morning swimmers who braved the waves

The second group including Evan Jones who is not recorded in the results

Bob Gardner and John Leonard walking the bay

John Hines out for his morning walk

Hinano Andrews - and she is not waving at me!

2014 Wellington Secondary Schools Road Relay Races Trentham Memorial Park Upper Hutt Wed 30 Jul

These relays are normally held later in the year but were brought forward to encourage more teams to enter. In the end only 19 teams turned up, including teams from Rathkeale College in Masterton. Because of the low turnout all of the grades were started together The strong north westerly made parts of the course challenging and it was obvious that runners were at times stuggling to contend with the wind. At least it didn't rain. Results