Taranaki Relay Race 2017

Over the weekend of 3-5 November 2017, 18 fine athletes took on the challenge of running the Taranki Mountain Relay Race.

A trip up the road from Wellington began Friday afternoon and thankfully all our team mates made it (Paul Norton, only just, by displaying some fine traffic-dodging skills on State Highway 1). Two 12-seater buses made the trip north to New Plymouth and a 2am start awaited the team on what turned out to be a nasty morning.

Arriving at the start line with the other teams, excitement was building within team “Don’t Mess with the Honeybadgers” and it was down to Paddy James to kickstart them off on the first leg in terrible conditions.

Some great performances were displayed by Tony ‘The Tiger’ Ling, Alison Gilroy, Vicki Willi and Joanne Kiely in the early part of the race and to the delight of the team, the weather cleared up; however, cloud cover still impeded the normally glorious view of Mt. Taranaki.

Into the second half of the race, tough displays were ground out by the likes of Ciara O’Leary, Ciara Conolly, Rosie Slevin, Adi Bergsma and the veteran of the relay run Bryan ‘Badger' Downes. However, the real hero of the day was Edel Sweeney who tackled the aptly named Death Valley (now renamed Happy Alpaca Valley).

The team crossed the line in 6th place overall in team event with a relay time of 12:32:31, which was a massive achievement. A huge thanks to our fantastic supporters Eimear Rodden, Hristina Stoeva and second hero of the day Ken Lee. A fantastic weekend was had by all and it turned out to be a great team-bonding event.

Team “Don’t Mess with the Honeybadgers”: Adi Bergsma, Alison Gilroy, Ciara Connolly, Ciara O’Leary, Damien Moloney, Dan Doyle, Dave Downes, Edel Sweeney, Eimear Rodden, Enda Costello, Eoin Norton, Hristina Stoeva, Joanne Kiely, Ken Lee, Paddy James, Paul Norton, Rosie Slevin, Stephen Cush, Tony Lingmeister, Vicki Willi.