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Nationals

Show Profile  Natalie Posted: 8 April 2004, 4:42 AM  
The way I see it, the National Champs comprises of a few individual races and the National Club relay champs, so in effect Club Spirit should have a place at the Nationals, Greg.

Lets just make sure that Elites don't all get tarred with the Greg Flynn brush which gives us a reputation for being prima donnas who want to take as much as we can from our clubs and give nothing back.

Thats not the way to play nicely.

Show Profile  onemanfanclub Posted: 8 April 2004, 5:16 AM  
And intelligent clubs might eventually see that the club relays are one good reason to actively recruit and retain and generally look after at least one elite runner. Would you like to be in a club that at least tries to take care of your needs as a focussed athlete , or one that sees you as basically an unneccessary annoyance except when your membership fee is due? Be proud to represent your club!

Anyway, I've just seen the start list for the sprint race. Does anyone know where I can get a fishing line and a pair of roller-skates in Palmy?

Show Profile  Jenni Posted: 8 April 2004, 5:27 AM  
Yeah please count most of the PAPO elites out of Greg's opinions.

For us the current format is quite difficult because we have a lot of elites and not so many to qualify to run in the other courses. It would be kind of fun to have a M21 and W21 relay some time but really we would just be too dominant!

NZ relays as they stands are like a very scaled down version of 25 manna in Sweden which was one of my and my club's favourite events each year. Sure Tiomila was probably top but we don't have the numbers for an exact match of that. I think the current arrangement has lots of pluses - it gives head to head first leg racing to the elites and encourages club spirit. It's still a national champs as to which club has the best team fitting the criteria - I'm hoping we've got at least a couple of teams who might just be the best this year.

And for that reason I will be hoping that PAPO elites will take them seriously enough to save their drinking until Monday night. Most competitions will tell you who is best prepared on the day (including who took it seriously enough not to drink) as well as a bit about natural talent of course.

The one change I would like to see is women getting a five minute head start on the first leg. Then having some of the best women in the country in your club gets to count for something which it doesn't really at the moment. It would make team selection for first leg much more difficult - would I put Chris or Rach in the "top" team - would Counties-Manukau put Tan or Brent?

This message was edited by Jenni on 8 April 2004, 12:33 PM

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 8 April 2004, 6:56 AM  
I wouldn't start Brent unless he had atleast 7 min headstart on Tania.


Show Profile  Andrew M Posted: 8 April 2004, 7:33 AM  
I woundn't start Brent (full stop)


Show Profile  jeffg Posted: 8 April 2004, 9:33 AM  
Perhaps the first leg of the mixed long can be used as an additional selection criterion for the WOC team. After all, the relay usually provides NZ's top WOC placing, and relay running requires skills distinct from individual races. The profligation of PAPO elites would have to go into composite teams; perhaps elite-less clubs can have a ballot and "pick their star". Like Jenni suggested, the women would need a head start based on km rates for the terrain, and Brent could start 7 min ahead of that.
Our club's top elite runner has already promised to keep off the booze the night before the relay :-)

Show Profile  Martin Posted: 8 April 2004, 10:08 AM  
hey, brent was in the winning team last year

This message was edited by Martin on 8 April 2004, 5:10 PM

Show Profile  pcbrent Posted: 8 April 2004, 12:53 PM  
And will probably be in the winning team this year, so ther!

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 8 April 2004, 1:00 PM  
Firstly Greg, Thank you so much for representing us with your opinion that you obviously gave alot of thought to. We can tell the thought you put into it by the logical aguments you present. The clear problems with the current format you have stated. The places were the current format fails to reach its objectives (the objectives which you have also identified sucsinctly). I am especially pleased to see the positive and detailed suggestion you have made to improve the format. It is also impressive that you suggest the lack of length in the nationals weekend is a deterrent when you yourself will not be running the elite classic.

Secondly, Martin wasn't Brent well over 7 minutes behind the winner of the first leg in that relay? Imagine how well you would have done with Tania.


Show Profile  pcbrent Posted: 8 April 2004, 1:36 PM  
Neil, I think you will find I was only 5.01 min behind (but it felt a lot longer)

Show Profile  pcbrent Posted: 8 April 2004, 1:45 PM  
Neil, you should have kept quiet about this one. While looking through the results I noticed that not only was I well within 7 minutes of the winner, but I also beat you by 1.05 min. I guess its lucky for you that Tania is not in your club.

Show Profile  Alistair Posted: 8 April 2004, 2:47 PM  
For those of you who don't know...

Tiomila is a 2 relays - a 5 leg day womens relay, and a 10 leg (open)night relay. No restrictions, courses are NZ-red level and are 4 to 8km and 6 to 17km respectively. 1-3 legs usually have no 'split' controls.

25 Manna is a 25 person relay with various age and gender restrictions. But it's special in that it is actually a 10 leg relay where runners 1,2,23,24,25 do individual relay legs corresponding to legs 1,2,8,9,10 and the other runners compete on parallel courses with 4 variations. Thus runners 3,4,5,6 go out together when runner 2 comes in. Runner 7 goes out when the first of 3,4,5,6 comes in and this system continues until the last of the group 19,20,21,22 comes in where upon runner 23 can go. This is the ultimate club relay!

Maybe the current NZ arrangement with 2 mixed formats is a little restrictive for some clubs but there will always be someone who doesn't like whatever format is used.


Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 9 April 2004, 1:01 AM  


This message was edited by Neil K on 9 April 2004, 9:46 AM

Show Profile  Alistair Posted: 12 April 2004, 6:03 PM  
...and the results are????

Show Profile  onemanfanclub Posted: 13 April 2004, 4:37 AM  
A very very quick overview for Al and anyone else not there...
Sprint:
(W)1 Sara Wallen 17:56 1st NZ Rachel 18:25 3 Claire 19:21 4 Tania 19:26
(M)1 Carsten 13:52 1st NZ Stu 14:11 3 Chris F 14:17 4 Karl D 14:41

Classic:
(M)1 Carsten 1:51:0 1st NZ Chris F 1:53:35 3 Rob J 1:56:07 4 Darren 1:57:29
(W)1 Tania 1:26:21 2 Sara 1:33:43 3 Rachel 1:34:04 4 Penny 1:34:37

MD (sorry, don't have official times):
(M)1 Karl (about 29 min) 2 Carsten +20 s 3 Stu +50 s, then Mark Lawson?
(W) A familiar line-up! 1 Tania 2 Marquita +2.5 min 3 Rachel +3 min

Relay:
1 Northwest (Stu, Dave Middleton, Mark Lawson)
2 Auckland (Rob J, Simon Jager, Jeff G)
3 Hutt Valley (Andrew Mc, Jason vDyk, Dave King) Woohoo!
4 Hawkes Bay (R+A+D Morrisons)
5 PAPO

Hopefully full results will be up soon as there were plenty of interesting ones in the junior and senior grades...


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