Tarawera Ultra Marathon 2014 Results

What a fantastic weekend for the Hamilton City Hawks at the 2014 Tarawera Ultra Marathon held in Rotorua on the 15th of March. The numbers speak volumes for our club’s participation level, with forty-two (minimum) club runners entered in the various events. This number equates to 5% of the total field and made up 18% of the relay teams who participated on the day. In all we had Hawk’s members in twelve (out of 65) relay teams and no less than nine confirmed solo entrants. High fives to our club’s turnout!

Due to the threat of Cyclone Lusi and the associated logistical impact on safety, all courses were shorted, with the long course and relay becoming 69km whilst the short course dropped a mere 1km, to 59km. Some entrants have suggested that the nature of the changes (the addition of the meanest hill on the course) made the short course harder, as well as adding an increased element of difficulty to the long course. That being said, all efforts on the day were praiseworthy, especially given the wet and windy conditions courtesy of the tail end of a cyclone.

An abridged version (see full report via link below) of the honourable mentions for the day includes:

  • Dawn Tuffery’s 3rd Place (female) in the long (69km) course.  With an unfavourable lead-up to the event, Dawn was hoping for a top 10 finish, so one would have to agree that a podium finish in an international event is an absolute triumph. Congratulations Dawn.
  •  Anthony “Little Brown Runner” Hancy came in 13th overall in the long course, placing 3rd in the race for Kiwi supremacy. Antz’s effort placed him high up in the non-pro entrants, with most of those in front of him playing the sponsorship card. Nice work Antz.
  • Kerry Suter, Phil Murray, Jai Davies-Campbell and Garit Read (aka. Team New Balance Hamilton Flyers) reigned supreme with first place honours in the relay. With a less than favourable lead-up (ask Kent) they managed to be the only team to beat the overall solo race winner, Sage Canaday, sneaking ahead of him midway through the last leg to win by five and a half minutes (+17:20 over the second place relay team).
  • The LadyHawks team, comprising of Kirsten Milne, Helen Rountree and Kovo Kowalewski beat up most of the boys in the playground with their 4th Place overall in the relay. Kirsten got the team off to a good start with the first two legs, followed by Helz on “Mountain One” and Kovo on “Mountain Two”. Very impressive time and result.
  • At a gazillion years old (in runners years that is) Brian Smith took out the oldest runner on the course award, but due to his “conserving energy for the finish approach” he missed the cut-off at Okataina and retired gracefully from the race. A smashing effort nonetheless.
  • Dan “the man” Philpott had a smashing race, finishing 10th overall in the short (59km) course. Dan’s effort was well above his expectations of himself, which showed in his finish line photos (which suggest that he could have run harder). Great work Dan!

A big thumbs to all those who competed in the event; I was most impressed by our club’s turnout and subsequent results (on social and competitive levels – nudge nudge, wink wink). I would especially like to congratulate my ”fabulous seven” who all trained hard for the solo events and, by no miracle, all made it to the start line and completed their respective courses. Nice one team.

Editors Note: Big thanks to Hadley for this newsletter article and for all the time put in to upload the photos of our Hawks to our website and flickr account.

 

Bib #

 Name (Team)

Overall Place

Gender Place

   Time

69km

256

 Anthony Hancy

13

13

 06:53:18

418

 Dawn Tuffery

27

3

 07:16:16

88

 Blair Tupp

  211*

138

 09:21:24

131

 Oscar Emery

  220*

147

 09:25:45

285

 Dion Hardy

  250*

169

 09:42:58

 

59km

861

 Dan Philpott

10

8
06:34:55

326

 Mike Brightwell

14

11

 06:49:06

945

 Ceana Priest

69

23

 08:18:38

797

 Brian Smith

n/a

n/a

 07:33:04**

 

Relay

1059

 NB Hamilton Flyers

1

n/a

 05:27:59

1058

 Hamilton City Hawks GBM

2

n/a

 05:45:20

1016

 LadyHawks

4

n/a

 06:23:43

1054

 Four X

7

n/a

 06:47:10

1039

 Cadence Coaching

8

n/a

 06:50:36

1004

 Warateras

11

n/a

 06:58:54

1005

 Terrawaras

17

n/a

 07:25:22

1003

 52 in 52

19

n/a

 07:30:10

1006

 Brewskis

20

n/a

 07:35:37

1000

 Guns’N’Roses

29

n/a

 08:01:12

1038

 Hamilton City Sqwarks

30

n/a

 08:04:34

1046

 A Hawks

31

n/a

 08:15:11

Note:

* Includes relay teams, ** Withdrawn at Okataina (40km)

View the full Flickr collection of Hawks at Tarawera Ultra 2014

 

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