Athletics New Zealand – Kimberley Smith won Boston – New Zealand Road Relay Championships, Moutere Hills

USA
BAA Half Marathon, White Stadium, Franklin Park, Boston – 7 October 2012
New Zealand distance runner Kimberley Smith won the Boston Half Marathon this morning in a time of 1h 10m 57s. By winning the race, Smith also collected US$100,000 for the best overall combined times in a three-race series that features the Boston 5K and 10Ks, run earlier this year.

The Providence, RI resident went into the event with a 16-second lead over Ethiopia’s Aheza Kiros on the B.A.A. Distance Medley leader board. After competing in the marathon at the London Olympic Games where she finished 15th, Smith had to make sure she balanced recovery and training in the build-up to this morning’s race.
Smith explained, “I had a week off [of training] after the Olympics and then slowly got back into [training]. I had to get back into training quicker than I usually do after a marathon. But luckily my legs felt pretty good, so the training was going pretty well.”
Keeping that in mind, Smith ran conservatively in the early miles. She ran with Kiros and Hellen Jemutai (KEN) through five miles in 28m 5s. Working together as they did in June’s 10km race, Smith and Kiros ran side-by-side until about nine miles into the race. It was at that point that Smith began to pull away.
“I went out really, really conservatively,” Smith said after the race.
“[Kiros and I] both were throwing in some surges after about half way. I think at about the nine-mile mark, I threw in one last surge and got away. I got a bit of a gap and then just kept it going.” By mile 10, Smith built herself a 15-second lead over Kiros and never looked back.
Pouring it on at the end, Smith went on to win by nearly two minutes, taking home the B.A.A. Half Marathon win, the B.A.A. Distance Medley crown and a $100,000 prize. Her winning time was only five seconds shy of the event record, set in 2010 by Kenya’s Caroline Rotich.

The 2005 graduate of Providence College was a local favourite and was welcomed by cheers from the crowd in Franklin Park. “[Franklin Park] definitely feels like a home course for me,” Smith said with a smile. “This was always my favourite cross country course in college. I think I heard some people on the course saying, ‘Go Friars!’ I always like running in Boston, so coming here was a great end to the series.” The race was a brilliant homecoming for the 30 year old former Papakura athlete in her first race since the Olympics. Next up for Smith, who was recently married in September, is the ING New York City Marathon on November 4. She said that she’ll honeymoon after that.

Notre Dame Cross Country, South Bend Indiana – 28 September 2012
Terefe Ejigu of Eastern Michigan was third in the Blue Race over 8km in 23m 39s. Harry Dixon finished 32nd in 24m 21s over the 8km and was the second runner for Eastern Michigan University, which placed 12th in the team standings. Dallas Bowden was the University of Michigan's fifth man, placing 134th in 25m 36s. Craig Lautenslager of the University of Texas at Arlington placed 11th in the Gold race in 25m 3s. Josie Wilcox of the University of Tulsa finished 70th in the Women's Blue race 5km in 17m 38s. The next day Matt Russ of the University of North Texas placed 41st at the Stillwater Jamboree Cross Country race in Oklahoma.

NELSON
New Zealand Road Relay Championships, Moutere Hills – 6 October 2012
Wellington Scottish broke a drought of eight years with victory in the senior men’s event New Zealand Road Relay Championships at Upper Moutere Nelson on Saturday.
Scottish spent almost the entire eight laps of the 71.7km event chasing the leaders with their final lap runner Tim Hodge eventually overhauling New Brighton Olympic of Christchurch with just 5km remaining.
Ben Barry had Scottish in third behind Wesley’s Andrew Haigh and New Brighton’s Hayden McLaren after the first lap. By the third lap Mark Bailey was well in command for New Brighton and they looked to have the title sewn up. New Brighton’s Callan Moody fought hard to stave off the challenge from Hodge, but the New Zealand road champion had the speed when it counted. Scottish recorded 3h 53m 13s, 27 seconds faster than New Brighton with Wesley of Auckland third and Lake City fourth.
Hodge said it was challenging with the Scottish team four and a half minutes behind early in the race.
“We knew we had to pull something out to get the result. On lap four we started edging back and were in third and then we slowly moved our way up. Edwin (Kenyan Edwin Kaitany) had a blinder of a run on lap five gaining over a minute and Dan Wallis got within 30 seconds on lap seven. All the guys ran really well, they left everything out there for the team,” said Hodge.
“It is good for the Club, every year for the past eight years we’ve been going we’re told you’ve got to win road relays and we’ve come close, second last year and it’s fantastic that the team managed to pull it off this year,” he added.
“I didn’t know if I was going to catch him (Moody) for a while, the gap was sort of maintaining around 10 to 15 seconds. I’d noticed earlier on the lap that I was making ground on him on the up hill, so I decided instead of just sticking on him I would just float by him and hopefully hold on for the win,” said Hodge.
It was a first time experience for Kaitany.
“I have never done a road relay before and I enjoyed it. It was fun and I hope to be here next year for the relays,” he said.
Manager of the Wesley team Ian Sussex said it was a first for his Club to be on the podium.
“Andy Haigh has made a big difference to the Club in terms of going out and recruiting guys and guys coming back to Auckland, like Malcolm Hicks who we left with University of Canterbury for a couple of years. We didn’t quite get the gold for him, he’s been used to gold, but he’s happy with the bronze,” said Sussex.

Hamilton City Hawks won the women’s title for the first time in the 36 year history of the relays. Team captain Helen Rountree said a gold medal was definitely the incentive.
“It is an awesome result. We lost a couple of our stronger runners a couple of weeks ago, so we had two of our masters women run for us and they just did amazing and they’re stoked to have got a gold,” she said.
“After being between third and fourth in the middle stages, Camille (Buscomb) pulled us into first and then Sarah (Biss) held on with a strong final lap,” added Rountree.
North Harbour Bays were second with Papanui Toc H third.

Athletics Nelson almost made it a clean sweep of the three master men grades. They headed in Scottish in the masters 40-49, after a great final lap run from Phil Costley, and won the inaugural over 60’s relay again beating Scottish with Wellington third. Athletics Nelson were first across the line in the 50-59 grade but had a penalty of seven minutes added to their finishing time after their final runner Cliff Bowman was unable to complete the lap and was substituted. This dropped Athletics Nelson to third with Auckland University winning and Lake City second. Scottish won the master women for the second year and their fifth title in seven years. Port Hills was second and Olympic third.

Wellington Harrier showed real strength in the junior men with three teams finishing in the top 10. They won the title by over two minutes from Hamilton City Hawks and Auckland City. Wellington also finished fourth and ninth. They last won in 1993.

Auckland City Athletic won the junior women with Pakuranga second and defending champions Athletics Nelson third.

Wellington Scottish won the top overall club award from Athletics Nelson and Hamilton City Hawks. If Athletics Nelson had completed the over 50s relay intact and won the gold they would have won the title with three golds.

ROAD RACES AROUND THE COUNTRY
Hamilton
Hamilton Half Marathon,  Flagstaff Park, 7 October: Scott Winton 1h 11m 50s, Graham O’Grady 1h 12m 19s, Phil Murray 1h 13m 8s. Lisa Robertson 1h 19m 0s.

Tauranga
City to Surf 12km, Tauranga to Mt Maunganui, 30 September: Ben Ruthe 36m 52s, Kyle Macdonald 37m 3s, Rick Buchanan 37m 33s, Luke Longdill 38m 14s. Women: Jess Ruthe 40m 36s, Sue Crowley 45m 13s, Judith May 46m 55s.

RUNNING THE LENGTH OF NEW ZEALAND
Congratulations to Victoria Taylor who completed her run the length of New Zealand at 8.05pm on Thursday taking 34 days to cover the distance from Cape Reinga to Bluff. The Lower Hutt 19 year old set a new women’s record, bettering Lisa Tamati’s 43 days. Victoria was the first to run on a treadmill on the ferry across Cook Strait and the first to run part of Stewart Island. Her goal was to raise $1000 for Child Cancer and she raised $15,284 on the journey.

ATHLETICS NZ APPOINTS SELECTION CONSULTANTS
Athletics New Zealand has announced two appointments to the part time positions of National Teams Consultant (Endurance) and National Teams Consultant (Development). John Bowden takes up the endurance role, while Alec McNab will be the in the development role.
Both have many years of relevant experience in the sport and will play an integral part in the new selection system for Athletics New Zealand. In announcing the new roles after a solid recruitment process, Athletics New Zealand’s High Performance Director Scott Goodman said he is very happy with the calibre of the two appointees. The announcement follows the naming of Graham Seatter in the position of Black Singlet Convenor

READ MORE  about the Consultant roles.
Further information about the new selection system is HERE.

                  
Murray McKinnon
Communications Advisor
Athletics New Zealand
0274 806086
murray@mckinnon.co.nz

 Athletics New Zealand