Interviews with winners from the Podium Rotorua half marathon, including local Sue Crowley.
Rotorua's Sue Crowley continues to dominate the local running scene after she retained her premier women's title at the Podium Rotorua Half Marathon event today. Fresh off the back of her recent Tarawera Trail success, Crowley won the half marathon title for the second year in a row whilst England's Isaac Dunn took home the men's premier title for the first time, during the one-day running festival.
About 1500 runners and walkers took part in the festival which included a half marathon, 10km race, 4km race and 2km kids' dash.
Crowley said she was pleased to win the women's half marathon in a time of 1h 28m 29ms, scraping 21 milliseconds off last year's finish, and close to 4 minutes ahead of second-placed local Tracey Hay.
"I'm happy with that," she said. "I don't do much running on the roads so it hurt in parts - the last couple of kilometres I was dragging myself along."
Rotorua's Sue Crowley retained her women's half marathon crown. PHOTO/STEPHEN PARKER.
Crowley currently trains with the Rotorua Trail Running Club and Lake City Athletic Club, and said the two styles of running complimented each other nicely.
"The trail running has helped a lot with the stamina side of things and the Lake City running [on the road] is helping get the speed up," she said.
The local runner said she would now turn her focus towards February's tough Tarawera Ultramarathon 100km event.
"I'm now going to completely throw myself into that training. Trail running is my big thing but events like the half are great to be apart of in Rotorua."
Meanwhile, in a competitive men's half marathon race, Dunn and Rotorua's Matt Parsonage battled out a close race.
"I found the course quite windy today but very pleased as I come from a triathlon background," said Dunn, currently studying in New Zealand.
"Matt challenged me for the first two miles and then I was able to pull away and keep in control."
Parsonage added: "Overall I'm very happy with a top three finish. My legs felt really heavy at the beginning because I have raced a lot recently. I then found the hills quite tough but was happy with the second half of the race."
Elsewhere, Rotorua dominated in the 10km with locals Michael Voss and Megan Grant both retaining their 10km titles from last year.
Rotorua dominated in the 10km with local Michael Voss finishing first for the second year in a row. PHOTO/ STEPHEN PARKER.
The revamped running festival, in its fourth year, had a record number of entries taking part today and race director Rob Docherty said he hoped the event continued to grow.
"We have been overwhelmed with the response this year following our relaunch," he said.
"Rotorua offers an amazing course here for both experienced runners and those just starting out.
"We will look to keep growing this event and getting more runners and walkers out there."
