The day was dominated by the Tauranga Twilight Meet which was in, you guessed it, Tauranga - approximately an hours drive from where we are staying in Rotorua. The meet started at 4pm, so we had the day to try to stay relaxed. Andrea was planning on doing the 3000m on the track in the evening and having not raced on the track in around 18months was a bit nervous despite my best efforts to calm her down.
In the morning Steve (Willis-KiwiRun organiser) had organised a trip to the local Agrodome so we could watch a traditional Kiwi agricultural show. It was a funny interactive spectacle involving sheep, cows, ducks and dogs. One of our group even got a certificate for milking a cow - something to show the folks back home!! We then went back to the motel to relax for an hour (Andrea slept) before driving to Tauranga for the meet.
Most people from the tour were running and Andrea was one of the first up. Despite only having done one slightly speedier session beforehand we had hopes that Andrea could at least match her current Personal Best of 9:28. That time in itself is one of Andrea’s best times and a good indicator of when Andrea was in her best form. The wind was a little blustery, but undeterred Andrea went straight to the front and ran a very strong race. Picking up for a 70s second last lap to finish in 9:28:87min. Missing the Pb by a few tenths of a second but given the circumstances a very good run. We are back at the same track in 3 days time so that Andrea can run the New Zealand 10000m track championships so this was a good tune-up, hopefully it’ll be less windy. There is a video of Andrea’s race kicking around so we hope to get a link to
that online in the next few days.
Quite a few others ran in the 3000m races with a few Pb’s and Nick Willis (Beijing 1500m Olympic Silver medallist) won the 800m and 3000m events in his first races back since surgery in April. Overall a fun day had by all.
GOOD LUCK FOR THE RACE TOMORROW. Will be thinking of you. Love Mam xx
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