I'm running behind Dave Hatfield in this shot. When I first started running as a 14 year old, Dave was in my grade and he did considerably better than I did as a teenager. I still run with Dave at least once a week and mentioned to him that I had a photograph of me trailing him at Newtown Park. Because he had a beard at the time it meant that it was taken at the end of his student days, which I am taking to be the 1979-80 track season.
This was a very difficult season for me. I was fighting shin splints all season, which meant that I was frequently swimming in the sea (I was still living in Paraparaumu at the time) after my training runs, in an effort to keep them at bay. I was also doing repititions on the beach over unspecified distances. In later years I would incorporate similar workouts in my training but they would be over parkland.
In the competitive arena I probably raced far too much, sometimes racing on a Wednesday and a Saturday, with some Saturdays including two races. Early in the season I raced over 10,000m on the track with Gary Weston-Webb (aka Wally Weta) and Derek Froude. We took turns at taking a mile and it was my second turn with nine laps to run. At the end of those four laps I had opened up a gap on Wally and Derek so ran on to win in 32:34. But that wasn't the end of the day. I also ran a 1500 later and finished second in 4:05. My diary entry for the day says I got buggered. I wonder why.
I originally thought that the photo above was taken at the interprovincial track meeting in December but Dave noted that we'd be running in Wellington singlets if that was the case. On the day of the interprovincial I ran the 800 earlier in the afternoon and despite really struggling to run the first lap in 58 seconds, I came home well to win it in 1:56.7 which, at the time was a personal best. In the 1500m, which Dave also competed in, the race had ambled a bit with an easy 65 second first lap when Dave decided that this would make things too easy for me and picked up the pace. He couldn't shake me, however and I whipped past him down the home straight to win in 3:55.
So process of elimination places the photo at the Wellington Champs 1500m where, despite all the difficulties with training, managed to win my first Wellington title. The track champs that year were held over the Saturday and Sunday of a single weekend so to do the 800/1500 double as I had intended meant racing four times in two days. In the 1500 final I sat back over the initial stages but moved up into second with 900m to run after Dave had made a break on the leading bunch. I caught Dave with 400m to run and sat on him until the home straight where I outsprinted him for the victory. In the 800 the next day I was left for dead on the first lap, trailing the field by about 20m, after Brian Turnbull pushed it a bit with a 53 second opening lap. This meant that I had to get round the whole field if I had any hope of winning the race. I didn't quite manage it but finished the strongest of anyone to take third place in 1:57.7. Brian was first in 1:56.3 with Barry Mayo second in 1:57.4. Dave also won his first Wellington title by winning the 5000m on the Sunday.
The National Track Champs, held at Mount Smart, were again a disaster for me. The track there was just fantastic compared to Newtown Park but it seemed my mind was not on the job. In my 1500 heat I ended up running the first lap in 60 seconds and was second-to-last. This totally demoralised me. I didn't think that maybe some of the people in front of me may have been running above their abilities and I would be picking them up later. I just gave up. I was pretty angry with myself afterwards and resolved not to be eliminated in the heats again.
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