Whangarei teams dominate to bag road relay double

Athletic Whangarei teams took out the double, winning both the men's and the women's titles in the Northland Road Relay Championships at Waipu.
Teams completed four 6.1 km laps on an out-and-back course along St Mary's Rd on Saturday, negotiating sealed and metal roads, including a hilly section. While only Northland clubs affiliated with Athletics New Zealand were eligible for the championship titles, Hatea Harriers, the organisers, encouraged other teams to compete.
Takapuna's Matt Downs and Stephen Lett entered as a two-person team, running two laps each, and gave Northland's best a lesson in fast running.
Downs headed off Whangarei's top junior, Ryan Slater running for Whangarei B, by 12 seconds in the first lap, with Hatea Harriers' John Kent finishing in third place 52 seconds behind Slater, with Whangarei's A team runner, Chris Seeley, another 16s back.
On lap two Lett, winner of last week's Arthur's half-marathon in Waitakere, increased the tempo, opening up a large gap on the rest of the field, finishing in 19m 07s - a record time.
'It's a good course - I've done it a couple of years before - once you get into the gravel on the hilly bits it's quite hard and you have to work a bit, but in the second half, you go down the hills and can try to pick up the pace a bit," Lett said.
Well behind Lett in the second lap, racing for the Northland Championship, Hatea's Colin Smith, quickly hauled in Whangarei B's Tony Langton, taking Hatea into the lead. But behind Smith, Whangarei A's Fred Needham powered through, passing Langton then - one kilometre before the third changeover - overhauling Smith. Smith's valiant attempt to hold on to the lead for Hatea was over.
On lap three, Downs held on to the overall lead for Takapuna, despite running 23s slower than Whangarei A's Richard Blogg, while Whangarei B's Murray Ruffell gained on Hatea's Neville Bassett.
On lap four, Lett outclassed Whangarei's top man, Ian Calder, completing the lap in 19:34 compared with Calder's 21:22, and scoring an overall win for the Takapuna duo, while Calder clinched the championship title for Whangarei.
Although his second lap was only 27sec slower than his first, Lett felt the strain. "It was hard - I was tiring a bit," he said.
Hatea's under-17 runner, Harry Linford, just managed to hold off a challenge from Whangarei B's Max Smith, securing second place in the championship for his team.
In the women's relay, Whangarei's Estelle Tiller took out the first lap, finishing 18s ahead of Hatea's Judith Bradshaw. On the second, third and fourth laps Whangarei's runners - Lynda Going, Janice Powell and Tayla Going - increased their lead over Hatea's Toni Daly, Jackie Grant and Bradshaw (running her second lap).
Tayla Going, 14, was the stand-out runner amongst the championship teams, taking the women's fastest lap time.
First in the walk, held over the same course as the run, was the PCPK team of Lyanne Kerr, Val Petherick, Robyne Calder and John Petherick; followed by the 3JV team.
Fastest lap times:
Men: 1 Stephen Lett 19:07, 2 Lett 19:34, 3 Ian Calder 21:22, 4 Richard Blogg 23:45, 5 Ryan Slater 23:46.
Women: 1 Tayla Going 26:25, 2 Janice Powell 28:08, 3 Estelle Tiller 28:43, 4 Judith Bradshaw 29:01.