Taking a back seat puts 24hour runner in front
THAT old tale about the tortoise beating the hare might not have been so farfetched after all.
Not when one considers how Greg Yee claimed victory at last weekend’s national 24hour running championships in Auckland.
The 40yearold Dunedin runner had a plan as he lined up on the start line at AUT Millennium Stadium.
He was aiming to reach the 200km mark and knew how he was going to get there.
So when the rest of the field took off at the start, he let them go.
Five hours in, one of the top runners dropped out — but Yee remained over 7km back in sixth place.
He was sticking to his plan.
One by one he began reeling in the field, taking the lead at 1am on Sunday after 140km run over 16 hours.
He remained on track for his target through to the 160km mark, before things became tough on the home stretch.
That did not stop him holding the lead though.
He finished with a more than respectable 188km, or 470 laps of the 400m track.
That left him 6km ahead of fellow Dunedin runner Croydon Paton, who claimed second place.
Not only was it his first national title, it was the first race Yee has won. ‘‘I’m pretty happy,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s the first time I’ve won a race and I guess to win a national race is a bit of a bonus.
‘‘I was going into it just to do it again.
‘‘I did it a couple of years ago and I thought I wouldn’t mind trying to do better, distancewise.
‘‘But I came out with the win, so I was pretty stoked.’’
He felt taking one’s time was key to a race like this.
He had a runwalk strategy and ensured he stopped to stretch regularly.
That was especially important in this race, as the surface was flat so the same muscles were being used the whole way, Yee said.
He had been doing endurance running for the past seven years, stumbling on it almost accidentally.
He used to be a keen mountain biker, and normally took a break over winter.
One winter he decided to keep active and took up running.
‘‘I thought ‘this isn’t too bad’. ‘‘That’s how it all started. Next minute I stopped cycling and I got into running.’’
Training for the 24hour championships often consisted of running 150km200km a week.
He ran for two to three hours around the track at the Caledonian Ground every evening from Monday to Thursday.
In the weekends he did runs of six to seven hours.
The Auckland event was not the only ultramarathon he had done, and others were the Great Naseby Water Race, the Northburn and the Round the Mountain.
He did ‘‘shorter’’ races too, those closer to 50km, he said.
December’s Kepler Challenge was the next race on his agenda.