10k at RWNZ Relay Champs

New PB! Took 1:20 off my previous best to record 60:05 for 10k at the Racewalking NZ relay champs / Ekiden walking relay in Upper Hutt. I had done no walking training since early February, so was expecting a time about 3 minutes slower. However my running training had apparently given me the aerobic conditioning I needed to turn in a good performance.

Time and distance recorded on my GPS.

I was expecting the trademark painful shins to appear early in the second lap, but they never eventuated. Perhaps the muscle fascia was constantly inflamed last year and the break from walking training has given it a chance to recover? I did suffer from fairly bad stitch for a lot of the race, so if I can sort that out I might finally be able to dip under 60 minutes!

Lap times (for 1.25km laps) were 7:37, 7:32, 7:39, 7:29, 7:23, 7:33, 7:33, 7:19; first 5km in 30:17, 2nd 5km in 29:48. My GPS recorded only 9.91km... the course was supposed to be officially measured with a wheel, so the 90m must just be GPS error.

Ekiden Walking Relay 2010

Trentham again entered a team in the 'B' division of the annual Wellington Scottish Athletics Ekiden Walking Relay. I walked the 10km lap in 61m:52s. This comes at the end of my off season so I wasn't in particularly good form. But my time was less than 30s slower than my PB so I was quite happy with that. A summer of ultras followed by two months of active recovery including plenty of running appears to have left me in a good position to build on.

New club member John Roskvist led the team out on the first leg (7.195km), bringing us through in 5^th position, with Race Walking Auckland's B team just 36s behind us. Viv took over from John, walking the second leg (5km). We remained in 5^th position but the gap reduced slightly to 27s.

Richard Willis walked the third leg (7.5km). Frans van Buel from Racewalking Auckland closed the gap and then slowly pulled ahead to finish 1m:11s ahead of us, dropping us into 6^th place. I took over from Richard to walk the fourth leg (10km). Racewalking Auckland opened the gap further to 2m:37s, but we both gained 2 places so that Trentham was now in 4^the position.

John Ihaka walked the fifth leg (7.5km), closing the gap to Racewalking Auckland to just 7 seconds. The first seven places in the race remained unchanged. Jackie took over for the final leg (5km). Grant Peper from Racewalking Auckland was just 10s/km faster, opening the gap between the two teams to 59s. The 5^th placed team, including New Zealand's current fastest walker, was just 1m:05s behind us.

Ekiden Walking Relay, 2009

This relay covers 42.195km and is held over a 2.5km road loop in Upper Hutt. The A grade (fully judged) race is the Racewalking NZ Relay Championship. With most of the Trentham Harriers team struggling to remain fully compliant, we elected to enter the B grade.

There were a few changes from last year's team, but at 4:29:09 we were faster than last year's time and picked up 3rd place in the B grade.

My shins tightened up on the first lap (2.5km) and stayed that way for the second lap. I was pushing hard, but couldn't go as fast as last year. Walked 46:16 for 7.5km.

RWNZ Ekiden Relay, 2008

I had a fantastic race to record 45:44 over the 7.5km leg. A substantial improvement over the 48:28 that I walked for the same leg last year! I was undoubtedly helped by having Ian Bailey from Palmerston North Athletics just in front of me.

The team recorded 4:31:44, only 7:52 behind the winning B grade team. We were faster than last year, but slipped one place to 5th.