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Among the youngest Half Marathon runners were locals Fairlane Selwyn (right) and Sera Bickers. Sera came fifth out of eight runners in the U19 category and Fairlane came 7th. Neil Orton donned a kilt when he ran the half marathon in the 50-59 age category. Chris Shortt of Red Beach preparing for the run.
It was standing room only on Orewa Reserve as awards were handed out in the Orewa Beach Half Marathon.
More than 1600 people took part, which organiser Rob Docherty of Running Events says made it his organisation’s biggest ever. It is one of the five biggest timed running events in Auckland.
The event took place in good weather on April 23 – Rob says the only issue raised was the effort it took to run into the wind for the final 3km down the beach.
The majority (around 1000) took part in the 21km half marathon, with 575 in the 10km, 225 in the 5km and more than 100 in the 2km Kids’ Dash.
The large numbers heading around the course, which included the beach, Eave’s Bush and Te Ara Tahuna (Orewa Estuary walkway) was a spectacular sight.
The first person home in the half marathon was Chris Trent in a time of 1:18:13, and second was Lewis Wright (both from the North Shore). Both were in the 20-29 age bracket but hard on their heels, in a time of 1:20:26, was Gene Rand of Albany who often trains at Millwater and was in the 40–49 category.
First woman home was Katherine Morgan (1:28:41) who came 19th overall and won the Women 30–39 category.
Local board member and fire fighter Mike Williamson did the half marathon in 1:30:17. This gave him seventh place in the 40-49 age category and 26th overall.
The 10km race was a comeback for experienced Stanmore Bay runner Brad Luiten, who has been sidelined for three months due to injury. He won it (and remained pain free) in a time of 36:58. Brad was only able to do light training for four weeks prior to the event. “Even though my time was four minutes off my PB, I was very happy to be running hard again,” he says.
Around 80 helpers were provided by the No. 5 (Rodney) Squadron Branch of the Air Training Corps, based at Silverdale, who gave a lot of positive encouragement to those taking part.
