1

STEPHEN DAY

PORTFOLIO

2

3

CONTENTS

References 4

Web copy 7

Media releases 8

Sakai, Japan 10

Video 11

Graphic design 12

Running 18

Feature writing 19

4

22 October 2008

To whom it may concern

STEPHEN DAY

I had the privilege of working with Stephen from 2002 – 2005 and during this time I observed his strengths in work and home environments. Stephen’s attitude and personal competencies made him a highly suitable member of staff. His experience when working for NZEI also gave him a national perspective on a range of professional, industrial and organising activity.

Stephen had a very quiet and intelligent approach to work. He never rushed into the discussion. He always listened to the debate, let others talk first and then contributed to the analysis often identifying aspects that were missing. His contribution was thoughtful, sometimes humorous, but he always took the discussion beyond its initial boundaries. To make his point Stephen never dismissed what had gone before but built on or turned previous arguments into a constructive response.

Stephen also had the ability to work successfully with anyone and in our education sector this meant a broad range of educators and workers from the early childhood to tertiary sectors, in professional, industrial and organising matters.

Stephen was employed as the research officer within the Professional Team. In this capacity he developed papers for our wide membership on a variety of topical issues which included the impact of the General Agreement on Trade and Services on education; a parliamentary inquiry into reading; foreign fee paying students; NZEI’s submission to the Ministry of Education on ICT provision in early childhood centres. Stephen was also part of the Industrial team contributing to its communication strategy during a negotiation phase.

I know Stephen’s colleagues in the NZEI Professional Industrial team admired his creativity, his research, ICT and interpersonal skills as well as his willingness to undertake and complete any task given to him effectively and efficiently.

I have no hesitation in commending Stephen to you as an applicant of high calibre and great potential.

Yours sincerely

Sandra AikinSenior Officer Teaching and Learning

REFERENCES

5

6

19th October 2008

To Whom It May Concern

Reference for Stephen Day

Stephen worked for Finsec from April 2005 until October 2007 in the role of Communications Organiser.

This role is responsible for co-ordinating the union’s media relationships, developing and delivering communications and resources, writing and designing (through to the printing stage) Finsec publications, including magazines, booklets, newsletters, media releases, brochures, stickers, forms etc. using a variety of desktop publishing software and the maintenance, updating and ongoing development of Finsec’s web-site and other electronic means of communication.

The role is also a part of Finsec’s national strategy team formulating proactive union strategies and responses to issues of importance to union members in the Finance Sector.

Stephen’s design skills grew during his time with us and he was a quick learner, both about our organisation and its challenges and particularly in relation to the use of new technologies in our communications. His contributions to strategic discussions were always on point and often gave others cause to reconsider their views. Stephen’s ability to determine and develop the right messages (whether they are oral, written or visual) were a key strength.

His work was always of a high standard, he had a well developed work ethic and his honesty and integrity were beyond question. He would be an asset to any employer.

Yours faithfully

Andrew CasidyGeneral Secretary

7

WEB CONTENT

Hinemoana Baker – eight years without a holiday

If Hinemoana Baker is looking relaxed it’s because she has just come back from her first holiday in “maybe eight years”. With her long string of casual short-term jobs, and her partner self-employed, it is not easy to align days off that overlap.

Read more...

Stephanie Turner – insecure work in the quake’s aftermath

“After the earthquakes we were quite worried about job security because of falling student numbers.”

As Stephanie Turner knows, when jobs are threatened, people in insecure work are the first to go.

Read more...

We can’t and shouldn’t teach people into a job

The tertiary education minister Steven Joyce has announced that, from 2017, all universities, wānanga, polytechnics and funded private training establishments that meet certain thresholds will be required to publish information about the employment status and earnings of their graduates broken down by specific degrees and diplomas.

This is a dangerous path.

Read more...

8

MEDIA RELEASES

15 March 2016

Māori students lose study support to whitestreamingA report into whitestreaming reveals that every university in New Zealand, most polytechnics and even one wānanga have cut jobs that support Māori students.

TEU will launch the report in Gisborne on Saturday 19 March at a nationwide hui.

Whitestreaming is replacing specialist Māori jobs and services with generalist ones. For instance, whitestreaming is replacing a specific Māori academic support officer who provides academic support and pastoral care to Māori students with a general support officer who helps all students.

TEU national president Sandra Grey is calling for an immediate end to the job cull.

“No further Māori jobs should be cut. No further Māori students should lose their support services. Every institution should restore the positions they have cut. And the government must restore the equity funding that made these positions possible in the first place.”

TEU’s Te Tumu Arataki (Māori vice-president) James Houkāmau says the report is an indictment on New Zealand’s commitment to Māori students.

“Whitestreaming doesn’t just affect Māori who lose their jobs - it undermines kaupapa Māori teaching, course content and programmes. Our institutions have failed to invest in their Māori students and they’re neglecting their duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

TEU is launching its Project Whitestreaming report and recommendations at TEU Hui-a-Motu: • Whatukura• EIT Tairāwhiti campus• Gisborne • 19 March 2016, 11:00am

ENDS

For more information:Māori who work in tertiary education around New Zealand will be available at TEU’s hui to talk, in te Reo or English, about their experiences and their students’ experiences of whitestreaming.

Sandra Grey, TEU National President, 021 844 176James Houkāmau, TEU Te Tumu Arataki, 021 556 361Lee Cooper, TEU Te Pou Tuarā and report co-author, 021 533 410

9

29 January 2016

Lincoln breaches VC appointment processTEU’s Lincoln branch is aggrieved that the university’s preferred new vice-chancellor has been interviewing staff under the guise of a visiting academic.

The branch committee understands that the university council’s preferred candidate to be the new vice-chancellor was introduced to staff as a visiting academic.

Some staff were told that he was preparing a discussion document for council on things that were happening on campus.

The candidate for vice-chancellor only disclosed the true purpose of his visit at the end of his meetings to some staff and stated that he was the preferred candidate for the vice-chancellor position.

Local TEU organiser Cindy Doull says she understands some staff were quite open and frank about the university and their concerns.

“A number of staff are very distressed that they were deliberately misled as to the real purpose of the meetings.”

Doull says she is appalled and considers the meetings with staff be a breach of good faith obligations to not mislead or deceive.

TEU and the university were still negotiating a process for appointing the new vice-chancellor, and had agreed union representatives could meet the five candidates in structured focus groups.

Doull believes the university changed the process unilaterally, without informing TEU, after one of the five candidates for vice-chancellor refused to participate in the focus groups.

“We are extremely disappointed that council accepted an amended process. For some time now we have expressed on behalf of staff a growing level of frustration with the management of Lincoln University and the significant impact on staff morale and wellbeing.”

ENDS

---

This release led to widespread national media coverage such as:

The Press: Lincoln University staff ‘distraught’ after being duped by undercover boss The Press: Editorial - Own goal as new Lincoln University vice-chancellor goes undercoverNews Hub: Lincoln University strikes controversy over vice-chancellor And subsequently a much better working relationship with the new vice-chancellor:

The Press: New Lincoln University vice-chancellor Robin Pollard regrets recruitment blunder

10

In 2013 I was selected as an ambassador to represent Wellington City at the Senshu International City Marathon. Since then I have involved myself in the Wellington Sakai Association, which is a group of Wellington citizens that promotes friendship with the Japanese city of Sakai.

I manage the association’s website and recently I have helped negotiate for Wellington City to invite and fund a runner from Sakai to run in our Wellington Marathon each year.

I wrote about me experience in Sakai at http://www.wellingtonsakai.org/news/2013/7/27/senshu-international-city-marathon-a-report-from-stephen-day.html

“Sakai is, as the tourist brochure might read, a city of contrasts. Perhaps the most obvious contrast to Kiwis is the mix of old and new. The old is best represented by the tea ceremony. Sakai is home to the tea ceremony - where four hundred years ago the tea master Sen-no-Rikyu perfected its art. Its minimalist structure captures the qualities of peace, contemplation and zen patience. We had the opportunity to participate in a tea ceremony, kneeling on tatami mats at a tea house at Nanshuji Temple where Sen-no-Rikyu perfected his art...”

SAKAI, JAPAN

11

In 2011 I volunteered to help the campaign to retain MMP. One of the reasons I did this is that MMP is a system that leads to more representative parliaments with more women as MPs.

In over a hundred years before we choose MMP only 44 women had been elected to parliament. At the time of the second referendum on MMP New Zealanders had elected over 80 women MPs in only 15 years.

MMP is a fairer and more representative voting system.

Below is a video that I created during the 2011 referendum to promote MMP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wvQGvAfZeo

VIDEO

12

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Here are two examples of long publications for which I have done the graphic design; TEU’s 2015 Annual Report, which I also proofed and edited, and a 2014 report Te Kaupapa Whaioranga, which was a detailed look at the state of tertiary education in New Zealand.

13

I’m proud that TEU’s members received these two designs well. The first ‘Tū Kotahi’ one was an attempt to create a retro-Kiwiana feel for a tee-shirt which people would be happy to wear on the weekend, rather than just at a TEU meeting. The second ‘Mārohirohi’ design was part of our 2015 conference branding. Mārohirohi means bravery or tenacity, and the hammerhead shark (or mangopare) symbolises those values in Māori culture. The hammerhead design is made out of elements of TEU’s logo. Both were a good example of incorporating Te Reo Māori into mainstream work in a way that people could embrace rather than feel challenged or excluded.

14

Don’t stand by

Stand together

If you are being bullied at work, talk to your

TEU branch president.

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UNION MEMBERS NEGOTIATED MY $1000 PAYRISETHANK YOU.WE’LL BE HERE ALL WEEK!

TERTIARY EDUCATION UNION TE HAUTŪ KAHURANGI O AOTEAROA

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womensfiesta.indd 1 9/6/2010 3:18:00 PM

18

Long distance running teaches discipline and incremental progress.

I have got a drawer full of running medals and trophies, but here are a few of which I am particularly proud.

From left to right is a bronze medal for 35-39 year olds at the World Mountain Running Championships in Wales in 2015, a gold medal for the Wellington senior men’s overall winter champion (cross country and road running) for 2015, three bronze medals for national mountain running championships (Colonial Knob 2011, Motueka 2014 and Nelson 2015), a gold medal for the Wellington team at the road championships in 2013 and a gold medal for my club, Wellington Scottish, at the National Road Relays in 2015.

RUNNING

19

15

according to Sport NZ’s Active New Zealand Survey 2007/08 these runners are not once-a-year joggers; half of those half a million will run in any given week, for an average of 109 minutes per week. Running is also gaining popularity, particularly among women.

Yet, like Coleridge’s ancient mariner surrounded by water but with nothing to drink, harrier clubs are surrounded by runners, but none, or very few, who want to be members.

There were just under 19,000 athletes registered with athletics clubs last year. Over 15,000 of them were less than 14 years old.

That might sound like a promising base of young people for the future of the sport. But sadly, few of those children are staying with athletics through into adulthood. Just because people belonged to a sports club as a child does not mean they stay with that sport

when they grow up. In fact, people are most likely to take up a new sport when they are aged 18 to 24, but that is also when they are most likely to quit an existing sport or activity.

Less than 800 of those 19,000 club athletes were registered in the open men’s or women’s age bands. Some centres, like Tasman and Northland had less than ten seniors registered in the whole province. There were no senior women in the recent Waikato Bay of Plenty Road Championships.

Scottish is an outlier, then, among athletics clubs. With a relatively small number of junior runners and a large base of adult runners we are not the standard model for harrier clubs in New Zealand. Among the other 205 athletics clubs in New Zealand junior athletes normally dominate.

All this seems a long way from the halcyon days of the Lydiard-era where tens of thousands of people would crowd to local tracks to watch New Zealand’s golden athletes run against and beat the best in the world. There isn’t a masters athlete in New Zealand who cannot regale you with stories of huge fields of athletes racing cheek by jowl in crowded cross country races.

Athletics New Zealand is deeply aware of this problem. Its CEO Scott Newman says there are now two different audiences in athletics.

“There will always be a membership core who are interested in the traditional model of harriers - particularly those who want to be competitive at a higher level but financial sustainability will come from broader participation.”

Stephen Day

The harried state of harriers...are we nearing extinction?There are over half a million running kiwis so why aren’t they in running clubs? This year over 100,000 people will take part in organised running events. Two out of every three adults will walk for recreation, and nearly one in five will run or jog.

Running is popular but not clubbing

FEATURE WRITING

20

16

Newman says clubs, when they organise races, are now competing head-to-head with other commercial event providers.

“[Most] people are far more interested in starting an event without the constraint of clubs,” says Newman.

The chair of the Athletics New Zealand Board, Annette Purvis, reported earlier this year that the organisation has lofty goals to change things:

“By 2018 we want to have a membership base of 80,000. Currently we sit unchanged at 20,000 traditional members. Our traditional model does not engage with the more than 110,000 people that take part in organised running events every year.”

Newman bluntly refers to that traditional club model as “hairy-kneed” harrier clubs:

“About half or three quarters [of clubs] haven’t got it yet. They need fresh blood who think differently and act differently, and that is hard when a club relies on volunteers. It will require a generational shift, Newman explains:

“Some centres and clubs are waiting for the national office to save them. But it is up to clubs and centres to be the shop front-window for harriers. Athletics New Zealand can only offer support, which we are doing, and will be doing more of. But change must come at the grassroots level.”

Because of that prognosis, Athletics NZ is working directly with clubs around community sport initiatives. It is looking to employ, for the first time, a person whose job will be to work with clubs to improve their administration, skills, events, marketing, and finances capability.

So, where do those other 60,000 athletes that Athletics New Zealand wants clubs to recruit come from? Recreational joggers and walkers who swarm the streets once a year for Round the Bays? Children who would otherwise be playing football and netball? Adults returning to a sport from which they drifted? Do we pinch them from other sporting codes - triathletes, cyclists and swimmers?

The running market is large and growing, how do we tap into it?

21

17

Athletics stalwarts commonly espouse a set of reasons that athletics and harriers struggle in today’s modern environment:

• There are so many more activities competing for people’s leisure time. People view triathlon, in particular, with its high-profile athletes, as a glamorous sport that did not exist in Lydiard’s time, but now “steals” young athletes from athletics.

• People have busier lives, more demanding jobs and less time to commit to leisure activities, meaning that all sports and community activities are suffering in our 24/7 global world.

• The big five sports in New Zealand (football, rugby, cricket, netball, league) so dominate funding and media coverage that they are slowly squeezing the available space for other sports to flourish. For the last two decades, a sport without television coverage was destined to be of second-tier importance, no matter its participation rates and achievements.

• Athletics suffers as a sport that only ever attracts sporadic interest. School track and field day and cross country is once a year. The rest of the year is devoted to week-in week-out team sports. And, as adults, once every four years the Olympics draws our attention to athletics before we return to the week-in-week-out excitement of team sports with leagues and local teams we can parochially support.

Athletics is adapting to its new environment. Sometimes by its own efforts and sometimes it looks around surprised to see its situation has changed and it has no choice but to drift with the current.

While harrier races have dwindled in size down to just the committed runners, thousands of social runners now turn up once or twice a year for massive “fun runs” where the focus is more on participation, fitness and community than it is on competition. Formal athletes have been left to figure out if these social joggers and walkers are the same as us and can “bridge across” into harriers clubs, or is their motivation

so different that there is not enough in common to build that bridge? Or, do the harrier clubs need to become more like them and change the way they classify ”members” and the services or ”products” they provide.

Newman says the smart clubs are picking up on these participation aspects of running.

“Some clubs are adapting well and making good money. Even among the clubs that are yet to do it, there is a widespread realisation that we have to do things differently.”

Success for clubs, says Newman, is now about offering participation opportunities, as opposed to membership opportunities.

Participation will vary across several spectrums - including regularity, competitiveness, and sociability - or desire to run with other people. But one of the most important spectrums for clubs to consider is whether runners identify themselves as “a runner” as opposed to “someone who goes for a run.”

The challenge now for harrier clubs is not about how to convert people who do run into club members, but how to convince people who run that they are runners. And, from there, to show them that, as runners, they are part of a larger community that shares their interests, hopes and aspirations. The difference between clubs and popular one-off events is that one-off events are primarily for people who want to run, whereas clubs are for people who identify as runners. Open-minded, innovative and publicly-visible clubs will create an atmosphere where people who run will feel comfortable publicly identifying themselves as runners. To do that we will need to meet these new would-be runners on their own territory and on their own terms, because they will not come looking for us.

“Some clubs are adapting well and making good money. Even among the clubs that are yet to do it, there is a widespread realisation that we have to do things differently.”

22

Skyrunning is the hottest ‘thing’ on the trail scene and like the latest hipster Kombocha Kola infused with the jus of Kale, everyone’s doing it. But before there was the Sky, there was the Mountain, and enough of a mob dedicated to running them in a set format to create A World Championships. One of them, Kiwi representative Stephen Day, lets us in on what it is to be a mountain runner on the world stage. Which this year, was in Wales.

FEATUREWORDS: Stephen DayIMAGES: Jono Wyatt

Mountain masochistst h e s p o r t o f M o u n t a i n R u n n i n g

74 75

23

Skyrunning is the hottest ‘thing’ on the trail scene and like the latest hipster Kombocha Kola infused with the jus of Kale, everyone’s doing it. But before there was the Sky, there was the Mountain, and enough of a mob dedicated to running them in a set format to create A World Championships. One of them, Kiwi representative Stephen Day, lets us in on what it is to be a mountain runner on the world stage. Which this year, was in Wales.

FEATUREWORDS: Stephen DayIMAGES: Jono Wyatt

Mountain masochistst h e s p o r t o f M o u n t a i n R u n n i n g

74 75

24

I N SEPTEMBER A TRAIN CARRYING A MOTLEY BUNCH OF KIWI MOUNTAIN

RUNNERS AND SUPPORT CREW PULLED INTO THE WELSH SEASIDE TOWN OF LLANDUDNO.

Victorian-era Britons purposely built the seaside town of Llandudno as a holiday resort. The Victorians’ idea of a seaside holiday was a long pier upon which to promenade, fish and chips with mushy peas, and a Punch and Judy show.

A century later little has changed, including the clientele. The first night our New Zealand mountain running team arrived at the hotel our fellow guests had an entire parking bay outside the hotel restaurant for their mobility scooters. We joined them for mashed spuds and gravy, followed by bingo and an in-house Irish singer who crooned hits from the 1940s and 50s.

But we weren’t in Llandudno just for the sea breezes and singalongs. Llandudno was the base for the athletes’ village for the World Mountain Running Championships, at which New Zealand had nine representative runners, including me. And of course, representatives from every other country on Earth hearty enough to field citizens who run in mountains.

So, two days before the race, Llandudno

suddenly filled up with athletes. International athletes who casually discussed their mile PBs and did complicated running drills in the hotel lobby.

And then it became real. No amount of shiny Athletics NZ kit or

bravado was going to hide me from a world championship race with thousands of spectators.

The race itself was not at Llandudno, but a small village, Betws-y-Coed, nestled in Snowdonia National Park.

The course was made up of short 4-kilometre laps, each climbing about 250 metres altitude through the Snowdonian bush to a misty lake on top of a hill and then racing back down to Betws-y-Coed’s mossy old stone church. The junior women ran one lap, the senior women and junior men whipped around the church and climbed back up for a second lap, and the senior men did three laps.

The trick with this type of (standardised) mountain running course is recovering from the ferociously fast down hills with enough rubber still left in your legs for a second or third steep climb.

Mountain running is not a big sport in New Zealand. It sits somewhere between popular-but-low-key trail running and competitive-but-forsaken cross-country running. It either represents the best or worst of both genres, depending on your perspective.

But what it does have is an IAAF-sanctioned world championship event – like the Olympics but with steep mountains. And despite its niche status, some countries do take mountain running seriously. Not for them the disparaging remarks about egg-and-spoon races. The British call it fell running and have a long and rich history of charging up mountains. The Americans have a massive population, money and the Rockies – a pretty good combination. Some of the African nations have started to take notice of mountain running in recent years. Olympic and World Marathon champion Stephen Kiprotich represented Uganda at mountain running before his gold medal fame. And he wasn’t even the fastest Ugandan in the team.

Chief among mountain running nations is Italy, where the Dematties brothers are superstars on the mountain running circuit. I have never seen a runner with the same ability that Bernard Dematties has – to completely disregard that part of the brain that tells you to stop doing something because it hurts. All runners have it to a degree – but his is another step up.

Sometimes mountain running does hurt. We like to claim we are doing it to be in touch

>>

just what is mountain running? NZ and World Mountain Running Championships alternate each year between up-and-down and up-only.

Uphill courses are roughly 4km for junior women with 400 metres of ascent, 8km for junior men and senior women with 800 metres of ascent and 12km for senior men with 1200 metres ascent.

Up and downhill courses are roughly 4km for junior women with 250m of ascent and descent, 8km for junior men and senior women with 500 metres of ascent and 12km for senior men with 750 metres ascent.

New Zealand has an incredible history of mountain winning with nine individual world champions (Kate McIlroy x1, Melissa Moon x2 and Jono Wyatt x6) as well as several team medals.

Next year’s NZ championships will be on the 14th of May at Ben Lomond Station Near Queenstown. Check Trail Run Mag’s trail guide for a way to experience some of the course

CLICK HERE Web: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WEBSITE AND RESULTS TV COVERAGE OF THE 2015 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

76 77

MOUNTAIN RUNNINGFEATURE FEATURE

25

I N SEPTEMBER A TRAIN CARRYING A MOTLEY BUNCH OF KIWI MOUNTAIN

RUNNERS AND SUPPORT CREW PULLED INTO THE WELSH SEASIDE TOWN OF LLANDUDNO.

Victorian-era Britons purposely built the seaside town of Llandudno as a holiday resort. The Victorians’ idea of a seaside holiday was a long pier upon which to promenade, fish and chips with mushy peas, and a Punch and Judy show.

A century later little has changed, including the clientele. The first night our New Zealand mountain running team arrived at the hotel our fellow guests had an entire parking bay outside the hotel restaurant for their mobility scooters. We joined them for mashed spuds and gravy, followed by bingo and an in-house Irish singer who crooned hits from the 1940s and 50s.

But we weren’t in Llandudno just for the sea breezes and singalongs. Llandudno was the base for the athletes’ village for the World Mountain Running Championships, at which New Zealand had nine representative runners, including me. And of course, representatives from every other country on Earth hearty enough to field citizens who run in mountains.

So, two days before the race, Llandudno

suddenly filled up with athletes. International athletes who casually discussed their mile PBs and did complicated running drills in the hotel lobby.

And then it became real. No amount of shiny Athletics NZ kit or

bravado was going to hide me from a world championship race with thousands of spectators.

The race itself was not at Llandudno, but a small village, Betws-y-Coed, nestled in Snowdonia National Park.

The course was made up of short 4-kilometre laps, each climbing about 250 metres altitude through the Snowdonian bush to a misty lake on top of a hill and then racing back down to Betws-y-Coed’s mossy old stone church. The junior women ran one lap, the senior women and junior men whipped around the church and climbed back up for a second lap, and the senior men did three laps.

The trick with this type of (standardised) mountain running course is recovering from the ferociously fast down hills with enough rubber still left in your legs for a second or third steep climb.

Mountain running is not a big sport in New Zealand. It sits somewhere between popular-but-low-key trail running and competitive-but-forsaken cross-country running. It either represents the best or worst of both genres, depending on your perspective.

But what it does have is an IAAF-sanctioned world championship event – like the Olympics but with steep mountains. And despite its niche status, some countries do take mountain running seriously. Not for them the disparaging remarks about egg-and-spoon races. The British call it fell running and have a long and rich history of charging up mountains. The Americans have a massive population, money and the Rockies – a pretty good combination. Some of the African nations have started to take notice of mountain running in recent years. Olympic and World Marathon champion Stephen Kiprotich represented Uganda at mountain running before his gold medal fame. And he wasn’t even the fastest Ugandan in the team.

Chief among mountain running nations is Italy, where the Dematties brothers are superstars on the mountain running circuit. I have never seen a runner with the same ability that Bernard Dematties has – to completely disregard that part of the brain that tells you to stop doing something because it hurts. All runners have it to a degree – but his is another step up.

Sometimes mountain running does hurt. We like to claim we are doing it to be in touch

>>

just what is mountain running? NZ and World Mountain Running Championships alternate each year between up-and-down and up-only.

Uphill courses are roughly 4km for junior women with 400 metres of ascent, 8km for junior men and senior women with 800 metres of ascent and 12km for senior men with 1200 metres ascent.

Up and downhill courses are roughly 4km for junior women with 250m of ascent and descent, 8km for junior men and senior women with 500 metres of ascent and 12km for senior men with 750 metres ascent.

New Zealand has an incredible history of mountain winning with nine individual world champions (Kate McIlroy x1, Melissa Moon x2 and Jono Wyatt x6) as well as several team medals.

Next year’s NZ championships will be on the 14th of May at Ben Lomond Station Near Queenstown. Check Trail Run Mag’s trail guide for a way to experience some of the course

CLICK HERE Web: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WEBSITE AND RESULTS TV COVERAGE OF THE 2015 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

76 77

MOUNTAIN RUNNINGFEATURE FEATURE

26

with nature, but the honest truth is that it is the M (masochism), not S (sadism), that most of us mountain runners get our thrills from.

The ‘hurt’ part about training for any race is the repetitions. I think this is especially so for a mountain race. I’ll happily trot up a hill, gawp at the view and roll down the other side. But ask me to do it five or six times in a row at race pace and my joie de vivre feels like it is escaping down a plughole.

Training in New Zealand for the world mountain running champs took place during winter, so to fit the hill reps in with the rest of my life I had to do them early in morning, and on the tarmac. I’m not a natural downhill runner, so I spent the last few months training my hips to get forward, to lean into the hill and get onto my toes rather than my heels. And, most importantly, teaching my legs to recover from a fast downhill quickly enough that they could go straight back up again.

Wellington’s notorious Tip Track became, for me, a feared downhill rather than uphill trail. The muddy hills around Island Bay received multiple batterings as I fell time and again on my bum while running in winter drizzle. Even my normally graceful pet greyhound Tammy occasionally landed on

her arse as she chased me through the mud.By the time I got to Wales I was confident

that, while my downhill running was not world class, it was at least no longer God-awful.

The start of a World Mountain Running Championship race is intimidating for many reasons – the international athletes, the large crowds, the TV cameras and announcers (suddenly the sport doesn’t seem so small fry). But chief among the intimidations is the sprint start. Five hundred metres down the course the track suddenly gets very skinny and very steep. Anyone who was not at the front was stuck behind up to one hundred other runners, some of whom had overcooked it and quickly became trampers rather than runners.

For most runners, the goal was to get to the front as quickly as possible so they didn’t get hemmed in by slower runners as they made their way up the first big climb. The irony, of course, is that the more people sprinted at the start, the less chance they had of running full pace up the hills, thus perpetuating the problem they were trying to avoid.

The result was, after that 500 metre sprint, I was about 114th out of 118 starters. And from there, as the song goes, the only way was up. And down, and up…

Luckily for me while my sprinting was

rather poor, my climbing was better. One by one I passed Slovakians, Russians, Irish, so many different countries’ runners and, most importantly, Aussies, all the Aussies.

I lost a few of those places on the fast and furious downhills. But not many. At one point I looked at my watch as I hurtled down the steep gravel trails and it indicated that I was running 2.40 minute-per-kilometre pace – and yet people were streaming past me like I was walking.

When I came down that hill the third and final time, past the little stone brick shops onto the village green and into the throng of people, I was in 54th place. Nothing that would make the newspapers back home, but still in the top half of the field. My legs were shattered and I was pleasantly dehydrated.

Apparently the scenery was breathtaking, and the race at the front of the field was ferociously exciting. I couldn’t tell you.

What I could tell you is that I, along with a bunch of other Kiwis, had been part of an amazing race, and played our part in a sport that will never be as glamorous as 1500 metre track races or big city marathons, but nevertheless has a unique appeal to me and many thousands of other runners and supporters around the world.

<<

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FEATURE FEATUREMOUNTAIN RUNNING

27

with nature, but the honest truth is that it is the M (masochism), not S (sadism), that most of us mountain runners get our thrills from.

The ‘hurt’ part about training for any race is the repetitions. I think this is especially so for a mountain race. I’ll happily trot up a hill, gawp at the view and roll down the other side. But ask me to do it five or six times in a row at race pace and my joie de vivre feels like it is escaping down a plughole.

Training in New Zealand for the world mountain running champs took place during winter, so to fit the hill reps in with the rest of my life I had to do them early in morning, and on the tarmac. I’m not a natural downhill runner, so I spent the last few months training my hips to get forward, to lean into the hill and get onto my toes rather than my heels. And, most importantly, teaching my legs to recover from a fast downhill quickly enough that they could go straight back up again.

Wellington’s notorious Tip Track became, for me, a feared downhill rather than uphill trail. The muddy hills around Island Bay received multiple batterings as I fell time and again on my bum while running in winter drizzle. Even my normally graceful pet greyhound Tammy occasionally landed on

her arse as she chased me through the mud.By the time I got to Wales I was confident

that, while my downhill running was not world class, it was at least no longer God-awful.

The start of a World Mountain Running Championship race is intimidating for many reasons – the international athletes, the large crowds, the TV cameras and announcers (suddenly the sport doesn’t seem so small fry). But chief among the intimidations is the sprint start. Five hundred metres down the course the track suddenly gets very skinny and very steep. Anyone who was not at the front was stuck behind up to one hundred other runners, some of whom had overcooked it and quickly became trampers rather than runners.

For most runners, the goal was to get to the front as quickly as possible so they didn’t get hemmed in by slower runners as they made their way up the first big climb. The irony, of course, is that the more people sprinted at the start, the less chance they had of running full pace up the hills, thus perpetuating the problem they were trying to avoid.

The result was, after that 500 metre sprint, I was about 114th out of 118 starters. And from there, as the song goes, the only way was up. And down, and up…

Luckily for me while my sprinting was

rather poor, my climbing was better. One by one I passed Slovakians, Russians, Irish, so many different countries’ runners and, most importantly, Aussies, all the Aussies.

I lost a few of those places on the fast and furious downhills. But not many. At one point I looked at my watch as I hurtled down the steep gravel trails and it indicated that I was running 2.40 minute-per-kilometre pace – and yet people were streaming past me like I was walking.

When I came down that hill the third and final time, past the little stone brick shops onto the village green and into the throng of people, I was in 54th place. Nothing that would make the newspapers back home, but still in the top half of the field. My legs were shattered and I was pleasantly dehydrated.

Apparently the scenery was breathtaking, and the race at the front of the field was ferociously exciting. I couldn’t tell you.

What I could tell you is that I, along with a bunch of other Kiwis, had been part of an amazing race, and played our part in a sport that will never be as glamorous as 1500 metre track races or big city marathons, but nevertheless has a unique appeal to me and many thousands of other runners and supporters around the world.

<<

78 79

FEATURE FEATUREMOUNTAIN RUNNING

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Just let me do my job, boss - Otago Daily Times

One of the of challenges working for an organisation representing academics is that they are fluent and use big words.

So when we at the Tertiary Education Union have a series of employment disputes that have a common theme running through them, some of our more eloquent union members want to describe the problem as managerialism.

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Time to end perception of degrees for sale - The Standard

The All Blacks do not give out honorary test caps to the chief financial officer of insurance sponsor AIG. Politicians no longer give seats in a House of Lords to their almsgivers and patrons. Perhaps it is time to question why our most prestigious universities give away honorary doctorates to significant benefactors.

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Tai Poutini finds new funding stream

Te Tai Poutini Polytechnic is receiving an additional $750 million funding from Minister Steven Joyce after changing its name to the South Western Motorway.

Outgoing chief executive Paul Wilson said that once the polytechnic registered itself as a road of national significance (RONS) rather than a tertiary education institution it found that the government coffers were no longer locked.

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