RUNNERS DIARY

Press, 5 October 1977, Page 37

RUNNERS DIARY

Canterbury’s leading distance specialists — with local knowledge and thousands of miles of training on the hills — could well spring a surprise. One of these is the Technical club runner, Stewart Hill, winner of the last New Brighton 50

race. Tall, powerfully muscled and noted for his ability as a wrestler Hill could well prove one of the men to watch.

Adequate pre-race preparation for marathon-type events is accepted to include training each day an average of about one third of the race distance. All the better to warn newcomers, planning a picnic run, who think extra carbohydrates will prove a substitute for thousands of miles of training and experience.

And those who have run two or three 30 km weekend jaunts in preparation for Saturday and speak light-heartedly about the round of golf the next day might also have a surprise in store.

Among the many lacking proper training, those likely to cope best may be runners who are also trampers and are not too proud to be caught walking.

Many runners will aim for the prestige achievement of completing the run in one day and a substantial proportion of them will finish late on Saturday night at the Hillmorton School. Nevertheless all runners, including some quite well performed ones, who mean to finish on the first day but because of the severity of the course cannot make it in under 14 hours, will have their times taken and their performances recorded and credited to them irrespec-

harm. Exercise physiologists claim the human mechanism is capable of accepting about 50 per cent more stress than can be imposed by act of will. Many runners know the human mach’ inery often finds its own way of ensuring survival: some lameness or other disability, sometimes psychosomatic, develops when the mental and/or physical mechanism is no longer willing and/or capable of coping. Nevertheless it’s an accepted fact of sports medicine that heat can kill. The hotter the day the greater need for a larger and more frequent fluid intake and seconds should be equipped with fluid and refreshment which runners have tested on the run to be suitable. The Red Cross will be on patrol and so will back-up vehicles from the Army and Air Force. While all this is going on it will also be a big week-end for many -other Canterbury runners. While the Canterbury representative team is contesting the New Zealand road championships at Dunedin, the Christchurch Presbyterian Harrier Club is expecting a big turn-out at its fifieth jubilee and former members from several parts of New Zealand will attend. One of the club’s bestknown early members and noted sports administrator and veteran runner, Clarrie Gordon, has organised a re-enactment of one of the old time crosscountry club runs. This will be held from the Presbyterian-Methodist hall in Bridge Street, New Siton. not far from the , now demolished, where the founder of the club, Laurie Brunton, held the first paper chase run in 1927. One of those foundation runners, Doug Lane of Palmerston north, will attend the jubilee.

Runners in that first outing included the Rev Paddy Jensen — later Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand — and Jack Watts, later to become a Minister of the Crown.

One of the club’s prominent earlier members, the Rev. Max Robinson, a New Zealand Univeristy champion over three miles in the 19305, is combing from Ashburton to conduct the club’s jubliee service at Knox Church on Sunday next. Among other prominent early members at the celebrations will be Ken Armour, who, in spite of a war wound in his knee, still runs regularly in Hagley Park at 60-plus.