Title Defence 1983

The early part of the 1983 Harrier season was not very successful for me. Despite a good showing at the Shaw Baton Relay where I ran a record time (see earlier post) I ran fairly dismally in the Dorne Cup and Vosseler Shield. Then, in a pattern which tended to repeat over the years, I came right for the Interprovincial Cross Country.

This time the interprovincial was held at a rather muddy and rather hilly course near Bunnythorpe and the field was a reasonably strong one, containing Euan Robertson, Brian Ward, Graeme Jones, Eric Cairns, Tony Woodhouse, Barry Prosser and Ken Keyte. It was a step up for me for this event and I finally managed to win one. From what I remember of the race it was not that I ran away from everyone, like in the Wellington Champs of the previous year, but that everyone else faded. You get this on muddy courses sometimes, where everyone in shoes has to battle the extra weight of the mud but the barefoot boys are as free as ever. My winning time was 43:44 with Brian Ward second (44:08) and Euan Robertson third (44:21). The times give an indication of how difficult the course was.

Leading Brian Ward, Steve Hunt and Alan just after the start of the race. I remember Dan O'Connell leading early in the race, he may be ahead and out of shot.

Two weeks later I was very determined to defend the Wellington Cross Country title and reasonably confident I had the fitness to do so.

From the start the pace was hot. Dan O'Connell led around the first lap in an astonishing 9:07 but then faded. The leading bunch then sorted itself out into Steve Hunt, Phil Barnes, Tony Woodhouse and me. The ground was very hard this year and, with the way I grip using my toes whilst running barefoot, I could feel blisters forming on the big and second toes.

Into the last lap, Phil Barnes leads Tony Woodhouse and Steve Hunt. I'm tagged off a bit and pondering a fourth place finish.

Heading into the last lap, Phil Barnes, Tony Woodhouse and Stee Hunt had put the acid on me and had opened a gap of around 20 metres. Feeling pretty tired, I had resigned myself to missing out on even a medal but approaching my favourite part of the course I'd managed to haul myself back up to the leaders. I remember thinking that if they were prepared to let me catch up with them they weren't going to beat me with only half a lap left.

I overtook Steve just before the roller coaster part of the course and as I did so, the blister on my big toe popped and squirted blood up my singlet, across my shoulder and into Steve's face (yuck). I then ran alongside Phil and managed to manoeuvre him into the back of a lapped runner after which I took off and never looked back until the finish.

This photo from the newspaper illustrates just how hard it was.

Approaching the finish with no one in sight behind.

It was the hardest I had ever run and not a whole lot slower than the previous year. My winning time was 37:57 with Phil Barnes finishing ten seconds back in 38:07 and Tony Woodhouse third in 38:13.

Showing the toll of the race after the finish. Dan O'Connell looks like he could do another lap.

Aftermath

I now know what Barry Ellis meant when he described feeling like a shell after the cross country trial earlier in the year. I was completely spent.

That evening a few of us headed up to Hawera for a party, I think it was to celebrate Wayne Duckett's birthday. As usual we headed out for a good Sunday run the next morning. But it wasn't good for me. I struggled to get up to any pace and eventually even though we were running on reasonably flat road, my foot decided to give way and gave me a sharp stab. I limped back to the Savage's place but the foot was no good and put paid to any aspirations I had at the Nationals that year.

In the end Derek Froude (representing Wellington although resident in Australia at the time) won the National Cross Country and Tony Woodhouse was third. Wellington also won the teams competition so a golden opportunity for me went begging again.

The lesson I learnt from this was that if you run yourself right to your limits, it's a good idea to take the day off afterwards.