Weekly NewsLetter
Monday, June 30, 2008

Last week's summary of the National Secondary Schools Cross Country
Championships omitted several excellent individual efforts by WHAC
runners; so apologies to Jessica Paton for 8th in the Junior Girls, Jack
Oliver for 3rd in the Junior Boys and Anna Roche 7th in the Senior Girls.

While Saturday 22 June was the college student's day, Sunday 23 saw
many of the club's senior runners performing in the Shoe Clinic Harbour
Capital Marathon, Half Marathon and 10K events. The traditional headwind
home ensured it was a demanding run, with many top ten finishes by WHAC
members noted. And apologies in advance for anybody I have missed.

The marathon saw great efforts by Mark Te Punga to come 2nd overall and
Gordon Clarke to take 2nd in his M45-49 group. The half marathon saw
prominent runs by Gabby O'Rourke (1st F40-44), Paul Bird (4th M40-44),
Ian McFarlane (2nd M45-49), Kate McIlroy (3rd F20-34), Mike Winsborough
(4th M55-59), John Barrance (2nd M60-64) and Ken Coad (3rd M60-64). The
men's 10K race was taken out by Daniel Nixon and the amazing Vickie
Humphries took out the Women's equivalent. Other top ten placings went to
Murray Peebles (2nd M40-44), Duncan Matthews (6th M50-54), Alison
Green (1st F50-54) and Percy Percival (5th M60-64).

This coming Saturday the attention will be on Taupo where the WHAC
runners will battle it out for the title of top club in the North Island.

The past weekend featured many of the club's top runners competing in
Saturday's Secondary Schools Cross Country Nationals. Over 1200 entries
found the course at New Plymouth's Francis Douglas Memorial College to
be good under foot, but pretty challenging with two significant hills.
There was a large turn-out from colleges in the Wellington region and
some excellent team and individual results.

The Wellington schools were not prominent in the year 9 events, but (as
predicted) they had a great battle in the junior boys race. In the
3-person, Tawa took 3rd, St Patricks 5th, Wellington College 6th and
Silverstream 7th, while in the 6-person they were 5th, 8th, 4th and 6th
respectively. The junior girls 3-person results saw Wellington Girls take
5th, while Chilton St James were 5th and Hutt Valley High 8th in the
6-person teams. The senior teams events were triumphs for the Wellington
schools with Wellington College winning the 6-person event (4th in the
3-person) and Wellington Girls winning their 3-person event (and 3rd in
the 6-person). While missing out on medals, Tawa College's consistency
saw them placed 4th - 7th in each of the senior teams events while
Scots College and Silverstream also had top 10 senior boys team results.

Given the high calibre of all fields, special mention must be made of
the runs by Kieron McDonald to take 6th in the junior boys, Barbara Roy
with an aggressive 5th in the senior girls and Nathan Barrett a
splendid 3rd in the senior boys. And my favourite moment - Penny Roy passing
an exhausted opponent in the very last stride to help her team to gold.

The Dorne Cup is one of the premiere events on the Wellington
cross-country programme and bus loads of competitors from Masterton, Napier and
Wanganui gave this year's event a real regional feel. The weather was
ideal and the course was in good shape, with the interesting addition
this year of a splash through the stream.

It was a great start to the day for the WHAC with Vickie Humphries and
Gabrielle O'Rourke, our two champion Women's Masters runners, leading
home the senior women in convincing style. Nathan Barrett and Max Briggs
did well to take third and fourth in the Men's 19 race while Hayley
Green, Barbara Roy and Katherine Vance completed a trifecta in the
Women's 19 race. The junior women won yet another team title, continuing
their unbeaten record this year.

The Men's 16 race saw Mike Krause, Jack Oliver, Stuart Hancock and Finn
Roy run solidly to take third in the teams race, while Anna Roche
continued her excellent recent form winning the Women's 16 race. Noah
Billingsley showed good training pays off with a win in the Boy's 11 race
and in the boy's 13 race, Andrew Hall, Patrick Roche and Sam Fitzimmons
combined to take second team place for the club.

Nearly 200 runners (the biggest field for the day) lined up in the
Open, Masters 40 and Masters 50 Men's race. Scottish took out the open
teams race, but the WHAC team took out the most competitive event of the
day - the Masters 40. Paul Forster lead the way, with a cluster of blue
singlets filling many of the grade's top 20 placings.

The great results above make up for some disappointment at the club not
having enough runners to fill teams in 9 of the 15 events (including
both the open men's and women's races). And Dennis Smith surprised even
himself by pulling the "grudge" series back to 2-1.

Another week without inter-club racing and another modest turnout for
the club runs and walk. While some followed their individual programmes
with hill work on Mt Victoria, most did the pack runs. The dire weather
warnings proved to be a bit premature and we managed to finish before
the storm arrived.

This Saturday most of the club will be involved in the Dorne Cup - one
of the premiere races on the Wellington cross country programme. In
contrast to the Vosseler, the Dorne is basically a flat course with minor
obstacles (the river stop bank, and a couple of little jumps), and it
always attracts bumper sized fields and keen racing.

The following Saturday (June 21) will see many of the club's younger
runners competing in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country
Champs. On Sunday (June 22), the more "hard-out" senior runners will test
their stamina in the Harbour Capital half and full marathons. Good luck
to all competitors over that weekend!!

The North Island Cross Country Champs will, as usual, be held in Taupo
and this is scheduled for Saturday July 5. Traditionally this is a
wonderful weekend away and all club members are encouraged to make an
effort to enter. Each club's top three finishers in each grade count towards
the Club Cup. The Wellington Harrier Athletic Club has been close, but
has not won this symbol of North Island club supremacy for some years.
In addition, the first three finishers from each centre in the senior,
masters, 16 and 19 grades count towards the Centre Trophy; and first,
second and third in these races win training grants. There are prizes
for the kids and an after match function with lucky runner numbers and a
major spot prize.

No inter-club racing this week, so Gordon Clarke lead the main pack on
a challenging wide loop of Wellington's CBD. With several regrouping
stops, we managed to pretty much ran together, even young Noah
Billingsley who arrived at club straight from his morning football game - well
done Noah!!

While most of our senior runners focus on the inter-club races, there
is a talented group of younger harriers in the club who are also
competing in a secondary school programme. There have been two of these races
so far and runners from Wellington Harriers have achieved outstanding
results for their colleges.

In the senior girls, the outstanding Wellington Girls team (featuring
Barbara and Penny Roy) has been unbeatable. The individual results for
both races have been lead by our club runners, Anna Roche and Barbara
Roy. In the under 16 girls, Laura Burke came third and along with Tessa
Finnigan was in the Wellington East Girls team that also came third.

The senior boys race at Karori was a battle to end with Wellington
College (featuring Mike Krause) just heading off Scots College (featuring
Max Biggs, Nick Bingham and Nathan Barrett) with Max taking out the
fastest time. At Trentham it was Wellington College and St Pats
Silverstream battling it out in the teams race with Nathan Barrett having the
fastest individual time. Kieron McDonald recorded the third fastest time of
the year 9 boys at Karori and showed great determination at Trentham
to have the fastest time. In the under 16 boys race at Karori, Stuart
Hancock and Tim Dawbin were members of the Wellington College team that
came second.

Good luck to all of you when you face the best in the land at the
national secondary schools cross country races in New Plymouth on June 21.