Wellington Waterfront 5k, Summer Series - Race 5, Queens Wharf, 25 November 2008

Well, summer is still not quite here – I think we’ve used up all the weather gods' favours in past seasons! We had just three season's PBs from the 45 participants tonight.

Walkers: Numbers swelled again tonight – with early starters almost out-numbering runners but not quite! Michael Walton was first race walker home recording a time of 28:51 to win tonight’s race. Second male home was Andrew Shelley who just missed a sub-30-minute time, posting 30:06. Third went to Tony Burrell with a time of 30:44 with Philip Grimmett not far behind. Fastest woman was Robyn McArthur who also just missed breaking the 31-minute barrier – recording 31:01 as fastest woman tonight. Second went to Terri Grimmett in 32:09 and third going to Alison Samson, who arrived late and started with a nine-minute deficit from the first start time. Alison’s solo walk adjusted time was 32:33.

Runners: Todd Stevens took a break from officiating the 5k race and showed his talent is not lost on the course with a win in this evening’s race – posting a time of 17:56. Second place went to Ed Massey with 18:15 and third place went to Chris Martin who recorded 18:36. Fastest woman went to Dawn Kelly who ran 23:48 with second place going to Letisha Tan in a time of 24:42 and third place went to Emmaline Allwood who ran 25:51.

Given the strong northerlies prevailing, I would say most times were about 45-60 seconds down on best times for all. So for those hardy 45 participants in this evening’s race – well done! I could see most were putting in a fair amount of effort into their run/walk and I guarantee you all – “it will pay dividends when we do finally get a still night on Wellington’s waterfront.”

As a special treat for all participants tonight, Scottish member David Colquhoun (and also curator of manuscripts at the Alexander Turnbull Library) provided a copy of his great new Lovelock book "As if running on air" as a special spot prize. He has offered another copy as a special prize on 9 December – that’s going to be a great Christmas present for one of you. Thanks heaps, Dave!

Congrats also to all weekly spot prize voucher winners – Robyn Iremonger, Emmaline Allwood, Michael Walton, Tim Dutton, Matthew Hancock, Simon Holmes & Daphne Jones.

Thanks again to tonight’s officials – Dan Powell, Karl Woodhead, Rob Little, Jamie White, Rees Buck as well as Bruce Perry, Jo Badham and Stefan Smith who were on hand to provide support if needed.

A REMINDER:

Next week again sees us sharing the organization of weekly Waterfront 5k races with Olympic Harriers – nothing will change for all participants with all aspects of the 5k races remaining the same – just different faces doing the officiating each fortnight from November 18 through to the end of February 2009. So, ongoing details are:

REGISTRATIONS FROM:          5:30pm onwards at The Chicago Sports Bar, Queen’s Wharf, Wellington

WALKERS/RUNNERS:              5:45pm for all walkers and if you feel you'll run around 26 minutes or more for the 5k race. It is preferred if you start at this time to help keep the race within a manageable time space – I suggest also that it makes for better racing for those runners joining the earlier start time.

RUNNERS' RACE:                      6:00pm for all runners – expecting to run 26 minutes or less