I'm not quire sure how we did it but Steve Walshe and I managed to get invitations to compete in the Molenberg Mile down Queen Street, Easter 1982. Possibly the reason was that we'd both competed at the Nike track series after the nationals. There'd been a few weeks between these events so I was definitely past my best but such an invitation was not to be sniffed at as it gave me the opportunity to compete against some of the best in the world and to post an awesome time.
The race started in Karangahape Road at 8:00 in the morning and I remember seeing people emerging from some of the bars up there, looking exceedingly seedy and wondering what was going on. Not being a morning person myself I was wondering if I could get the body into race mode at that hour.
The steepest part of the descent was the top quarter mile and I think we went through faster than I can sprint one on the track. We passed the half mile in 1:44 and at that stage the field was still quite bunched. It was also at about this point that my feet became blistered.
However, the road begins to flatten out over the last half and this began to separate the better runners from the rest of us. In the end it was Steve Scott who won the race in 3:31.25 from Michael Hillardt (3:32.20) and Ray Flynn (3:32.75). Then came John Wlaker (3:33.93), Tony Rogers (3:37.23) and Russell Haswell (3:39.15). I finished just behind Steve Walshe in eighth place with a time of 3:39.37 (to Steve's 3:39.32). Ken Moloney (3:39.97) and Ross Thurlow (3:41.69) completed the field.
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