No Defence - 1984

Going into the 1984 cross country season I had a new plan for my training. I'd decided that I was too soft over the longer distances and the way to remedy this was to work harder on the anaerobic phase of my training. You may wonder, why change a formula which was working? but in order to achieve a goal of representing New Zealand I felt I had to change something in training to improve my performance in racing, especially over the longer distances. So instead of doing an unknown number repetitions over an unknown distance, in an unknown time over parkland, I decided to go to the track and do a predetermined number measured reps in a predefined time. In my case this tended to be 10 x 400m repetitions in 60 seconds with a 400m jog recovery. The mileage and hill phases of the training remained the same.

As usual I ran poorly in the Dorne Cup but improved my performance in the Vosseler Shield. The latter race ended up being a classic showdown between Dallas McCallum and me. Dallas, being his normal aggressive self, put the pace on almost from the start and with me being the only one game enough to go with him, we quickly established a huge gap on the rest of the field. Dallas wasn't happy that I was keeping up with him and kept putting in bursts over the opening lap. By the time we got down to the Badminton Hall towards the end of the first lap I was beginning to doubt that I could keep up the pace he was setting, so when he put in another burst I decided to let him go. That was all he needed, he'd established a gap and he defended it until the finish. His winning time was 35:34 and I was nine seconds back.

Years later Dallas would tell me that if I'd've stuck with him at the crucial stage he would've given it away. Knowing him, somehow I doubt it.

I won the interprovincial cross country again so things were looking pretty good for a third Wellington cross country title. Little did I know the training I'd been doing had been taking its toll on my body.

Dallas makes the pace from the start leading me, Barry Prosser and Phil Barnes.

There were no surprises in the way Dallas tackled the race. He went to the lead from the start and tried to make the pace so hot nobody could stick with him. But I did. Initially I found the pace comfortable enough but before too long I ran into problems. Fairly suddenly my breathing packed up and my legs ceased to function as they normally do. I had to let Dallas go and didn't have any ability to latch on to anyone else as they came past.

Alan and Alastair battle it out for second.

Into one of the later laps. It appears that I have given up.

Alan almost keeps it in the family, finishing second.

The picture that began it all. Sprinting in with Gary Weston-Webb for 10th place.

Finally Gary Weston-Webb caught me but it was within sight of the finish line so I wasn't going to let him past.

Aftermath

After that performance and another below par one at the nationals I decided to go to the doctor and get things checked out. What the tests showed was that, although my haemoglobin was fine, my ferritin levels were pretty low. The doctor prescribed a course of Ferrogradumet and in a few weeks time, after giving away the repetitions and reverting to a pure mileage regime, I was back to a good level again.

The first lap of the Wellington to Masterton Relay 1984. Alastair leads me, Euan Robertson, Mark Furlan and Dave Hatfield.

The National Roady Relay was the Wellington to Masterton and, despite indulging in a few celebratory pints the night before, I got out and ran one of my best road races ever. Alastair was the fastest on the day, getting the drop on me just before the Petone overbridge, and we did beat a lot of classy runners.