I have run the Shaw Baton Relay over numerous courses. Today it is well established at Battle Hill but when I first joined Kapiti Harriers in 1972 it was held in Johnsonville at the top of Old Coach Road. From there it moved to Waitangirua, Canon's Creek, Aotea and Broken Hill. It's the Broken Hill course where I did my best performances.
The picture here is of the start of the relay in 1980. Brian Turnbull is showing off his track speed by leading out but it was Dave Hatfield (with the beard) and Alan who would lead the race through at the first changeover. Scottish held out Wellington to win on this occasion with Dan O'Connell running the fastest time of the day clocking 6:09. Despite having Alan, Gavin Thorley and me in the top ten fastest times of the day, our team could only finish fourth.
1981 saw Victoria University take out the relay and in 1982 Wellington won.
By 1983 the Kapiti team had developed a bit more depth despite the retirement of Gavin Thorley. We organised our team starting off with our slowest runner and working up to our fastest, in an attempt to get the best out of everyone. By the time Alan started the second-to-last lap we had worked our way up to fourth, with Wellington well in front. I remember waiting at the last change with Dave Hatfield when Gary Weston-Webb handed over to Dallas McCallum with a huge lead. Dave said words to the effect that it was all over but I thought to myself "we'll see about that". Alan came storming through to better Dan O'Connell's course record by a second and put us in second place. The Broken Hill course consisted of a flat section of a hundred metres or so followed by a substantial downhill which wasn't too steep so was very fast. Then there was the same sort of a climb back up to the plateau we started from, a bit more flat and then a little hump of a hill about 150m from the finish. I let myself go down the hill and dug it in on the climb to almost get in contact with Dallas. But Dallas being Dallas he just wouldn't let me make that contact. He held me off on the flat and then powered his way over the hump to give Wellington the win. I ran the fastest time of the day with 6:04.
1984 saw our Kapiti team finish third but by 1985 we were sure we had the team to win it. In addition to Alan and me we had Des Woods, Bruce Melrose, Bruce Odams (who'd run some really good 800s on the track) and Rob DeBique. An interesting facet of this race was that Wayne Duckett was down from New Plymouth that weekend and opened the relay for the Olympic F team (probably because his future wife was running for Olympic at the time) posting the fastest time of the day with 6:07. The two Bruces ran strongly on the first two laps but coming into the third Wellington were in the lead. Alan ran really well to give us the lead which we never relinquished. I remember that night Olympic put on a barn dance and our team went along as animals.
1985 saw us defend our title. The team was essentially the same but Michael Craig, another promising 800m runner was in the team for Des Woods, who'd headed off overseas. Bruce Odams took the opening leg and handed over to Bruce Melrose in second place but in a handy position. The second Bruce took the lead and Rob, Mike, Alan and I only increased our lead.
That was the last time the Shaw Baton was held at Broken Hill. From there it moved to Pauatahanui for a few years before becoming established at Battle Hill. As for the Kapiti team, we managed a third in 1988 and a second in 1989 (when the race was a Pauatahanui) but didn't feature in the results after that.
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