Wellington Cross Country Champion 1982

Despite the good run at the interprovincial cross country I wasn't particularly confident heading into the Wellington Champs. The course was at the beach end of Queen Elizabeth Park from McKays Crossing and it was a course I was familiar with and suited my speed. But from my experience at the Vosseler I knew that I could easily overdo things early on and pay for it later in the race. So for the first half of the first lap I sat with the leading bunch which contained Steve Hunt, Graham Macky, Tony Woodhouse, Dallas McCallum and Peter Arkwright.

My favourite part of the course was at the far end where there were a series of small undulations like a mini roller coaster. I found that I could use my leg speed on the downhills to boost me up the following uphill and in this way roll almost effortlessly over the country. It seemed that none of the others could quite manage the same technique and as the course flattened off a bit afterwards I glanced around to find I had a good 20 metres on the rest of the bunch. Thinking it was way too soon to be making my move I eased back to let them catch up again but the gap remained the same for the rest of the lap.

Still feeling good at the end of the lap and having had a bit of a rest I thought I might as well run my own race from there so just let the legs do what they felt like doing. The gap got bigger and bigger until at the end of the race I was 50 seconds ahead of Graham Macky with a time of 37:40. Tony Woodhouse a further 12 seconds back in third.

It was one of those rare days when feeling good corresponds with the day of a race. This is what coaches strive for but don't always deliver.

The people from the press seemed fascinated that I had won the event in bare feet, even though I'd been doing it that way my whole career (and still am). The photographer wanted me to pose with my foot up and I was finding it a bit difficult to keep balance, hence the grimace.

Aftermath

With a time that was fastest over all centre championships that year, and with my performance against Paul Ballinger in the interprovincial there were many (myself included) who gave me a good chance for, if not a title, at least a placing in the National Cross Country Champs. But my inconsistency came to bite me.

Maybe I should've given it a miss, but on the Sunday before the champs we had a social football match arranged for the crew at work. Being the fittest on the field I ended up sprinting up and down the field for the whole which left my legs rather stiff and sore in the days to follow. The Cust course was quite flat with a few gentle undulations and underfoot was really hard. Running barefoot in these conditions just didn't work. My legs tied up and I finished well down the field in the mid 20s.