Photo of our team - Gary Holtz, Me, Peter Hauge, Stephen Farquhar & Yvonne Shaw
2.30am Sunday morning I awake with cold sweats and vomiting…..”oh Joy” I think to my self. I lay awake until its time to get up trying hard not to be sick again. After talking with coach it is decided that I try and start the race and just get around the judges to finish. Today is the 10km and one that I had hoped to do my best in. We all get up and put on our damp racing gear from Friday….ughh…..and head for the 2km walkway. Yvonne takes one look at me and teases me that even when I tell her I am sick she can still never beat me and that I will prob do a record time…….. I weakly laugh and start to dread the start.
8am we are lined up ready to go, gun goes off and away they all go. Stephen to the front, Pete, Yvonne, Gary and then little ol me. There were 6 judges scattered around the track today, so you really have to be watchful and concentrate all the time. By the 2nd lap round I saw Yvonne pass pete and as I too got close enough I also passed Pete….he was looking greener than me!!! Both of us must have eaten something that didn’t agree with our tummy’s. I was not enjoying this race on little bit. I was mentally struggling with the fact that Yvonne was getting further and further away from me and the fact that I was going to be ill at any moment was not helping either.
I managed to make it to the 5km mark before I had to succumb to the queasiness in my tummy and took the opportunity to be ill on the grassy corner out of everyone’s view. Pete by this stage had got his second wind and was away again. With Yvonne in his sights he set out after her and did manage to catch her in the final few laps but sadly for Pete on the last lap as he went over the speed bump a judge was watching and it was decided he had a bent knee and he was disqualified. Which was such a shame as he had picked up and was making good time.
Yvonne cleared the 10km with no marks on the DQ board and won her age group with a time of 1 hour 2 mins. I crossed the line with 1 mark on the DQ board (you can have 3 then you are disqualified) I won my age group with a time of 1 hour 4 mins. Glad to have finished I crawled off to the side and lay on the cold grass and proceed to feel like I was going to die!!! It was the worst I have ever felt during a race.
Photo is of me slowly coming back to life and speaking with Stephen (my coach)
After the race we zipped back to the motel, through all the gear into the rental and it was announced that I was driving back home while the guys were going to sit in the back and enjoy all the wineries on the way home……………..all 3 of them. Needless to say that by the time we pulled up at the airport, the guys were in a “great” mood and poured them selves out of the car and into the airport. Luck it was a gentle flight back home.
All in all, we had a fantastic trip away with most of us winning two gold medals and being NZ champs in our age groups. Stephen and I have qualified and been invited to enter the NZ Open Track & Field at the end of March…so what this space.
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