Running
As I have mentioned before New Zealand loves its sport and has great facilities given the population. However they also like to make the most of the terrain and in running this means we spend the autumn and early winter pounding around sheep fields. I should of course note at this point that they remove the sheep first...!
A few club members, sometimes with the assistance of an ATV or 4x4 take out a pile of flags and set out a course which will certainly be chosen to run up and down the hills (the steeper the better) and might include stream crossings, mud and fences. Most weeks our local club members race each other with either a closed handicap (we all run together and the results are adjusted at the end based on your previous times) or open handicap (we set off at designated times with fastest last in the hope we all race together to the line).
At times however we get more adventurous and race around the fields in other places against other clubs. There seem to be clubs in almost every town so a lot of people turn out for these events. And when we are really lucky we take place in national races which usually feature racing in parks with nary a sheep in sight. Normality will soon return, after the North Island Cross Country Championship (NICCC) in two weeks we'll be back running on the road.
For those who care we men usually run about 8km, the ladies do "only" 6km and juniors run a little less. The courses are usually two laps so you get to enjoy the thought of running up all the hills for a second time. At the NICCC we old men (35+) actually get to run less than the younger ones, usually we run together.
As I have mentioned before New Zealand loves its sport and has great facilities given the population. However they also like to make the most of the terrain and in running this means we spend the autumn and early winter pounding around sheep fields. I should of course note at this point that they remove the sheep first...!
A few club members, sometimes with the assistance of an ATV or 4x4 take out a pile of flags and set out a course which will certainly be chosen to run up and down the hills (the steeper the better) and might include stream crossings, mud and fences. Most weeks our local club members race each other with either a closed handicap (we all run together and the results are adjusted at the end based on your previous times) or open handicap (we set off at designated times with fastest last in the hope we all race together to the line).
At times however we get more adventurous and race around the fields in other places against other clubs. There seem to be clubs in almost every town so a lot of people turn out for these events. And when we are really lucky we take place in national races which usually feature racing in parks with nary a sheep in sight. Normality will soon return, after the North Island Cross Country Championship (NICCC) in two weeks we'll be back running on the road.
For those who care we men usually run about 8km, the ladies do "only" 6km and juniors run a little less. The courses are usually two laps so you get to enjoy the thought of running up all the hills for a second time. At the NICCC we old men (35+) actually get to run less than the younger ones, usually we run together.
posted by Tim | 2:11 AM
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