Manawatu Striders

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Fun on the fifteen – Manawatu Striders winter series (15km)

The club house where the events start and finish.
Inside at registration.
Runners huddled around the course maps.
More runners studying the different routes.
Course maps for the 3km, 5km, 10km and 15km events.
A chilly start, but glad the rain held off.
Not long before the start.
And off we went, rather unexpectedly.
The well known first couple of kms, same as the Super 7s route.
Passing under the Manawatu Bridge.
Me at full speed coming down Fitzherbert Street.
Crossing the Manawatu Bridge on our way to Massey Uni.
Sticking to the walkway, the course passes through a couple of tunnels under the roads.
Gerry making his way up the second hill on Massey campus. A few people had to backtrack after going straight ahead instead of turning right.
Striders on the out-and-back section next to the sports ground on Massey campus.
Lovely to see so many Striders. Time for me to start remembering fellow club members’ names, me thinks!
More Striders.
Gerry at the turn of the first out-and-back section.
June having fun en route!
Al and Cath.
The out-and-back section at the Massey agricultural research farm, opposite Massey Campus.
Still going strong.
Gerry approaching the Manawatu Bridge. Less than 2kms to go.
Speeding across the bridge towards the finish.
About 1km to go.
Margaret doing great in the walkers event.
Bananana! I hope the banana handouts at the end of events never stop.
Warm coffee, tea, hot chocolate and biscuits in the clubhouse. What a way to end a wonderful event.
Al and Cath approaching the finish.

It’s that time of the year again; freezing nights, frosty mornings and the garlic shoots just starting to poke their heads out of the ground in your vege patch.

It is also time for the Manawatu Striders Winter Series. I will never forget our previous running of these events in 2011 when the windscreen of the car was so frozen, that it took several buckets of water to clear a patch. As soon as the water hit the windscreen, it would just freeze again. That was on the 10km event earlier in July. The 15km was a fair bit warmer at about the same time of the month than this time around, if my memory serves me well. Winter arrived late this year and to top it off, it has been unseasonably warm. Grass was growing in full force, my asparagus still hasn’t died down to recuperate for next years season and our olive grove is full of new growth.

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Super Seven Series – races 6 and 7

super7finish

All good things must come to an end. Gerry on his way to the finish of the final event in the series.

Isn’t it amazing how time flies when you’re having fun? In a blink of an eye, two weeks have come and gone. And I don’t even have much to show for it.

Race 6 of the Super 7s was again a time trial session for us and we both managed to improve our times over the 7km course. Gerry’s time was a fair bit better, but mine not so much – only five seconds. I managed a 40:45 while Gerry ran a worthy time of 32:30 – more than a minute and a half faster than his previous attempt. Well done my Dear!

Race 7 was more of a recovery run after the 21.1km event two days before, so we had a nice easy jog to finish in about 45 minutes.

The Manawatu Striders had a welcoming event for new members, and also to say thank-you to all the hard working bees that helped to stage the events every Tuesday for the past seven weeks. Lovely eats and drinks were provided and a few lucky draws of free entries to the Striders’ half marathon were handed out, and I’m stoked to be one of the lucky recipients! Thank you Striders.

With the series at an end, we’ve decided to find ourselves a flattish course of around 5 to 7km to use as a time trial every now and again (weekly maybe?) to gauge our progress.

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Super Seven Series – race 5

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The Manawatu Striders in action

Some of the members of the hard working team behind the Super Seven Series each week, busy inflating and anchoring the start and finish banner. Getting everything set up and ready to play host to 1700+ participants takes a lot of hard work that starts early in the afternoon already. Like a well oiled machine each team member knows his/her role in the process to have the event run smoothly come 6:15pm. I don’t think many people realise just how much organising and effort go into staging events of this magnitude. And with the added bonus of receiving water, bananas and a sausage sizzle, it adds a whole new dimension to the planning and preperation.

A hearty thank you to the Manawatu Striders for putting together these highly successful and wonderful events for all to enjoy. Cheers!

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Super Seven Series – race 4

For this week's run we were treated to a glorious, sunny day, so the complementary sunblock was a welcome sight.

For this week’s run we were treated to a glorious, sunny day, so the complementary sunblock was a welcome sight.

With every step I take, I feel my lungs burn, I hear myself breath hard and fast and there’s a knot in my stomach that just won’t go away.

The reason? I’m going all out, trying to see how fast I can finish the 7 kilometre course of the Manawatu Striders Super Seven Series.

It’s week 4 of the series. Wouna and I unfortunately missed week 2, but for the first and third runs we kept to a fairly casual trot. Being far from racing fit, this seemed like a good approach, allowing us to enjoy our runs while still finishing fresh.

This week, however, being the halfway mark of the series, we decided to not run together like we always do, but each rather going at our own pace, to try and push it a little to see where our fitness levels are. Continue reading →

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Windrush Windfarm Adventure – a fun walk, run or ride event

The start of all the events. Cyclists getting ready.
The runners/walkers in the 2.7km event taking off. Great to see so many youngsters taking part.
The almost complete field of runners and one walker.
Shortly after the start, already the first bit of a climb.
Probably the steepest down and uphill on the course. It’s steeper than the photo suggests, trust me!
The finish area of the cycling tour some 100 metres from the Windrush start/finish.
Trying to get to grips to the size of one of the blades.
Gerry passing 3 massive turbine blades in storage.
Lovely blue skies and a cool breeze made for perfect running conditions.
Cattle and sheep roam the farm.
When not on farm roads, you follow the mowed grass.
Another fairly significant climb.
Gerry speeding by in a blur with the Manawatu Gorge and River below.
A unique view on the Manawatu Gorge.
Happiness is …
Back at the finish.

After our “long-run” the previous day (about 10km) we decided to partake in the inaugural Windrush event of approximately 6km the next day as a “shakedown” (a term used by friends for the recovery run the day-after a hard session). Not that we are even close to double-sessions, cool-down/recovery runs or any other such technical things. But it sounded fancy, so there you have it :-).

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