New Zealand Marathon champion Shireen Crumpton's last-minute entry into the Lydiard Legend Marathon turned the heat up a notch for Whangarei's Ady Ngawati, who comfortably won the title in 2009.
"When I heard Shireen had entered I thought, 'here we go'," Ngawati said following Saturday's 42km race through West Auckland's WaitakereRanges.
"We ran together for the first 16km and then the hills came and she left me behind - she's like a whippet - so petite and quick - and she got ahead on the uphill and then on the last long downhill she extended her lead. That's when my quads started to tighten up a bit and I realised I probably had not done enough work on the hills," the 33-year-old said.
The 39-year-old Crumpton, who won the NZ national women's title at the Southland Marathon last year, crossed the line in first place, in a time of 2 hours 59 minutes. While it was nowhere near her personal best of 2.37 she ran at the Helsinki World Championships five years ago, it was a quick time for the difficult course. Crumpton was four minutes ahead of Ngawati, who was pleased with her 3:03 time in her first marathon this year, while Lesley Turner-Hall was three minutes behind the Whangarei runner, in third.
"It's a good time for this course, which is definitely one of the hardest in NZ - it's a good run to see where you are at ... I'm really happy with how I went," she said.
Turner-Hall was picked as Ngawati's closest rival ahead of the race, until the Dunedin-based Crumpton entered the event, in its sixth consecutive year.
The Legend marathon, renowned as the toughest one in NZ because of the numerous hills and off-trail terrain, was a good measure for the two-time Auckland Marathon winner who will go up against Crumpton again at next month's 2010 Auckland Marathon, which doubles as this year's National Championships.
Before October 31's Auckland Marathon, Ngawati will cross the ditch to race in the Melbourne Half Marathon, on October 10.
Close to 600 competitors took part in the Legend Marathon and Arthur's Half Marathon, including a quality men's marathon field which was won by the favourite heading into the race, Olympian Dale Warrander. Warrander stormed home in 2:30:01.
