O’connor run-walks his way into second place
What sounds like a crazy scheme of walking a marathon was enough to earn Manawatu’s Will O’connor second place at the Hawke’s Bay marathon.
O’connor finished the 42km race in 2 hours 45 minutes 52 seconds at Hastings on Saturday, which was nearly 19 minutes behind winner Samuel Wreford of Timaru (2 hours 27 minutes 8 seconds).
But O’connor was implementing a new idea where he wanted to know if he could runwalk a sub 2 hours 40 minute marathon.
According to O’connor’s Performance Advantage website, in the run-walk method, the athlete runs for a period, then walks for a short time to recover, although they have to run faster to make up for the breaks.
The theory is they will be able to run faster at the end of the race and have a faster time than if they had run the whole time and been worn out by the end.
O’connor, who won the Buller Gorge marathon earlier this year, was delighted with his second place, powering through the second half of the race.
‘‘I had a plan; I raced last year and the last 10km can be brutal,’’ he said. ‘‘I got the other guys at 4km to go and put a surge on, so obviously paced it way better and came home second.
‘‘I put it out there on social media about the walk-run and got a few messages saying ‘this guy is an idiot’. When I came to the first aid station at 5km, I was third, but I started walking and suddenly everyone stopped clapping and started asking if I was all right.
‘‘I just nodded and said ‘yeah, don’t worry about me’.’’
O’connor, who in the final throes of completing his doctorate at Massey University, plans to use the method at the Wellington marathon next month.
Luke Hurring of Auckland was third in 2 hours 48 minutes 36 seconds.
Auckland-based American Marisa Ruhter won the women’s marathon, finishing in 3 hours 4 minutes 5 seconds.
Manawatu’s Chris Sanson was an impressive winner of the half marathon.
Sanson, who finished second at the Rotorua marathon last weekend, made a last-minute decision at the Hawke’s Bay run to switch from the full marathon to the half.
Sanson ran 1 hour 12 minutes 14 seconds, beating Uk-based Kiwi Dan Wallis, who was 15 seconds behind, and third-placed Ryan Mcalister from Blenheim.
‘‘It was really good out there, that was a fast finish, a sprint with 200m to go and get the job done,’’ Sanson said. ‘‘I am normally a front runner and don’t like to have company and I tried to get away but he held strong and I thought man, I might be second today, he is such a good runner.
‘‘But I waited for the sprint and got him, that was cool.’’
Laura Nagel of Napier won the women’s half marathon in 1 hour 21 minutes 9 seconds.
There were some small changes to the course due to heavy rain in the days leading up to the race.