A seasons-best number of people turned up to tackle the hills of Roger and Edna Woodruffe’s farm on 1st May. This included 12 Minimoas who ran 1km, the youngest being 3 year old Emma Long. Her older brother Oliver was first home.
The Open Handicap format meant a staggered start, with some of go (0:0 min) and others like Nick Johnston out at 35-38 minutes for the men’s 3 lap race.
Each lap of 3.2km included two stiles and three large gates to get over. This worked to the advantage of those more nimble footed and agile.
In Girls 3.2km race, first on handicap was Tayla Cornwall 24:40 (off an 8 minute handicap), narrowly from Hazel Duker 24:46 (5:30 h/cap) and Mia Thomson 24:57 (8:30 h/cap). Mia had the fastest net time of boys and girls in 16:20.
Boys on handicap were Harrison Stevens 26:25, Joshua Humphreys 27:05 and William Kenyon 30:10 (who at 11 minutes handicap was the backmarker). Harrison was the fastest boy in 16:55.
Junior Women outnumbered the colts 15 to 7. Both did two laps of the undulating course (that’s Moa code for hill after hill after hill).
Running off an 8 minute handicap, Courtney Fitzgibbon lead the JW home in 40:20 and also had the fastest overall time of 32:20. She was followed by Hayley Cornwall 41:58 and Stephanie Walker 42:16.
Samuel Stichbury won the Colts (14-17 years) in 39:36 from Nelson Doolan 41:48 and a short gap to Max O’Connor 41:54. Samuel had the fastest overall time of 27:06.
There were 16 women in the 6.4km two-lapper. On handicap Claire Scott took her first ever win with the club. Congratulations!
Unfortunately for Claire there were no trophies to take home today. Next was Jo Speary and Tina Solja. Tina off a 23:30 handicap had the fastest time of 32:14 – six seconds quicker than Courtney in the juniors so retaining some honour for the women!
A large field of 38 men faced the start with 30 completing the three laps, being a total of 9.6km with 15 gates or stiles to navigate.
Park Run form proved to be a poor predictor of performance – the flat-earthers being brought down to earth by the hardier hill dwellers.
Some experts estimate that for every 3 metres of elevation on a course you can expect to lose about 1.75 seconds compared to running on the flat. So with about 80 metres elevation per lap that adds up to 2 min 20 sec (or about 44 seconds/km). But from that we need to acknowledge the gains of running downhill. You can expect to claw back about half of what you lost going up. And then we have to factor in those 15 gates and stiles. So net slowdown for this course was perhaps 35-40 sec/km for a fit runner – probably more for those of us more average.
Running from a 32 minute handicap, AJ Cornwall needed a final sprint to get by Josh Brooks and take the win – just 1 second separating them. Fastest time overall went to Damien Lardner in 39:33 with Nick Johnston 39:56. The battle for men’s supremacy during the season is shaping up to be epic with several putting their hands up to topple Nick who has been cross country king the past few years.
