Manawatu Striders Super Seven Series – #1 (18 January 2011)

The Manawatu Striders, in association with Vautier Pharmacy, hosts the Super Seven Series. This is a series of 7 events over 7 consecutive weeks (each Tuesday), each 7km long.

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T-shirt, socks and “permanent” number for all 7 events.

After reading the severe weather warnings on the MetService website (amongst others, the after-effect of a Oz tropical cyclone heading our way) we briefly considered doing our daily run before the onslaught of the predicted gusts and rainstorms. The unbearable heat during the β€œquiet before the storm” period was something else. But apart from the extremely hot and humid temperature, the weather seemed to be holding up and we ended up entering for the whole series of 7 runs, including an event T-shirt, for only $35. Continue reading

Manawatu Striders – Tuesday club run & walk (11 January 2011)

Had a jolly nice 8km run with Alister (Chairperson of the Manawatu Striders) tonight! He was looking after us not-so-fit/fast newcomers to make sure we find our way around the course. Thanks Al! The club currently seems to boast more walkers than runners. They gather twice weekly for runners (Tuesdays and Sunday) and three times a week for the walkers (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays).

Unlike SA clubs that normally caters for all levels of speed, you have to be quite fast here to keep up with the group, who seems to be going at about a 5min/km pace. Could this maybe contribute to the lower number of runners at the club? If you’re new to running, a 5min/km pace is quite daunting, me thinks. Being a bit of a slow poke, it’s daunting to me who’s been running for 10+ years, last managing a 5min/km pace in 2003!

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The Kahuterawa Two Day Classic race – 27 November 2010

The Kahuterawa Two Day Classic race (27 and 28 November), organised by the Manawatu Striders, is a marathon broken into three stages over two days. Stage one is 7km long and started at nine in the morning. The 15.42km second stage started at one in the afternoon of the same day, and only the following morning at nine, saw the kick-off of the last leg of 21.57km. 42.2km in total. It’s a great way to get a feel for covering the distance of a marathon, while being broken down into manageable stages. In our unfit state, we sadly only managed the first short stage of 7km. Continue reading