The Napier Harriers held their annual �Strifflechase� relay at Anderson Park on Saturday afternoon. The relay, named after Terry �Strif� Strampel whose idea the original event was, is a relay with a difference. The teams are selected so as to be even, and then each team heads off around the course, running together at the speed of their slowest runner. At the end of each lap, the slowest runner drops out and the team continues at the pace of their next slowest runner until just the fastest runner is left to do the last lap.
At the end of the first lap Trish Foster (8:41) had her team 14 seconds ahead of Gina Finlayson�s (8:55) team with Aleesha Heywood (9:07) another 12 seconds off the pace. At the end of the first lap Wendy McIvor�s team was over 1 minute behind the front-runners, but sitting well ahead of their ranking.
Brendan Speakman (8:17), pacing Foster�s team on the second lap, held their teams leading position by running the third fastest time of the leg, behind brother Eric (7:56) who was second fastest, but it was Rory Diver (7:38) who ran the fastest time for the leg and moved McIvor�s team through to second place, forcing Finlayson�s team back into third.
The McIvor�s team lead was short lived however, with junior girl Laura Smidt, battling against senior athletes. She was overtaken by John Craven (6:40), running for Foster�s team, and then Stephen Lindsay, running for Finlayson�s team to hold onto third at the final change. Andrew Spence (6:46)was second fastest on this lap and Paul McGettigan third (6:52) behind Craven.
The good news for McIvor�s team was that their final leg runner was club number 1, Chris Corney, who was chasing first Peter Gillies, running for Finlayson�s team, and then catching Mark Lane who was running the last lap for Foster�s team. Corney ran fastest time for this leg and caught Lane about 400 meters from the finish to give the McIvor team victory by 17 seconds from Foster�s team with Finlayson�s team finishing third a further 24 seconds back. Fastest times for this leg were Chris Corney 5:36, Craig Mathers 5:40 and Mark Speakman 5:58
