Every week Duxfield and Mark Cressingham arrive at 6pm to help set up for our weekly club night. Athletes Maggie Jones, Nat Kirk and their young team of helpers are gaining some insight into this as they successfully organise and set up the children's section on Monday.
The late rugby season - delayed by Covid - meant establishing the full athletic facility was a bit behind. The rail went in last Tuesday, which meant one less job this week as during the shared facility time small cones at five-metre intervals marked the inside of the track.
The big job, however, was erecting the impressive and bulky hammer and discus cage.
The team, led by Duxfield, of Tony Bayler, Cressingham, Peter Monrad, chairman Mike Dwyer and leading throws coach Richard Drabczynski, successfully tackled this eight-hour job on Saturday.
Long throws are back on the programme and the hammer cage will feature our leading female Olympic hammer throwers at the Cooks Classic on Sunday, January 30.
The new traffic light system operating will be experienced by Whanganui athletes on Saturday in Masterton at the final round of the Regional League. Wairarapa is on orange and this allows organisers to exceed the 100 at each section of the previous meeting a fortnight ago in Palmerston North.
However, all at Masterton must have a vaccine pass to compete or officiate. With a few as-yet unvaccinated, some of our younger ones who have only had their first vaccination, will be unable to compete.
We are also in the midst of NCEA exams and others feel they can't afford the whole day away from studies. The resultant much smaller team is unlikely to lift Whanganui from third in the team competition between 15 clubs in the Lower North Island.
Jonathan Maples will be making his first appearance in the competition. The Ohakea-based Maples will start in sprints and the longer hurdles. Maples looked good over 300m this Tuesday, with a personal best 35.69, and set another best over 60m (7.16), which should lift his confidence for the weekend.
Toby Caro has set a personal best every time he has stepped on the track this season, including his fastest 600m helping teammate Daniel Sinclair to his first sub two-minute 800m (1:58.83) on Tuesday. Sadly, the in-form Sinclair will not be in Masterton but 15-year-old Caro will be.
Since the start of the season Caro has run a personal best at every meeting. He made a 22-second personal best over 1500m at the first regional in Inglewood and took a further six seconds off this at the second meet in Palmerston North to record 4:18.34 for the classic distance. He has decided to end this year with a 3000m on Saturday. He recorded 9:20.65 for his first sub-10 minute effort at club night on November 9. He keeps his fingers crossed for good conditions on Saturday and hopes the bigger and older field will help him to continue his impressive sequence of personal best performances.
Maggie Jones continued to show good form with an especially pleasing 300m (43.18) that helped drag 800m-runner Josephine Perkins through to a personal best in a good speed outing (44.20). Both athletes benefitted from the C programme of non-standard distances used before major events.
Other sprinters were relieved to see the wind die away just before the start on Tuesday and the warm and relatively still conditions helped athletes such as Edie Franks, Morgan Wilson, Damian Hodgson, Max Herdman, Travis Bayler and Myron Lewenilovo to some good performances.
A large group of volunteers, including a Whanganui group, will be in Masterton at the weekend, helping to keeping the sport alive in troubled times,
