We were rough and ready guys, but oh how we could harmonize…..

Yet another semi-distinguished Nu Zulun sporting event will be held this Wednesday on the North Shore of Auckland.

It is indeed none other than the Eyres Teams’ Race – a race synonymous with athletic excellence and harmonious esprit de corps.

None of your untidy-schoolboy-rugby scrapping here folks.


Back in 1966, at the tender and impressional age of 16, I was in the winning team. Now 43 years on, "older but no wiser", I shall front up again.


The Eyres Teams’ trophy was given to the club by AH (Peter) Eyre featured in the above photo of the official opening run of the Calliope Club on July12, 1930. He’s the gentleman in the middle with the white stripe on his shorts.


The venue for the event has changed over the years. For many years it involved a lap of Lake Pupuke, a distance of fractionally over 6 km. The present course is in a refined and sequestered part of Birkenhead and involves three laps of a 1.78 km course (thus 5.34 km).


It is a sealed handicap event which means that all the finely tuned athletes will toe the starting line together. In days of old, each runner was given a handicap and the teams were drawn by ballot. After the race, the handicaps were subtracted from the times and team totals were tallied to reveal the winning combination.

These days the handicapper has devised a way of making things more competitive. Everyone is ranked as usual with estimated times, but the handicaps are done on placing positions (team as a whole) and in that way towards the finish there is an incentive to pass someone as that runner gains a place and the other runner loses a place. And the placings make all the difference. Then if there is a tie on place points, as there usually is, it is taken on estimated total time for team versus the actual time.

It is all very scientific!


And I shall being running scientifically as I do every year in this event. My running efforts will ebb and flow in rhythm with the varying terrain of this undulating course.


There is one short uphill section, where I invariably break into a walk. This is to strategically nurture my resources for the long, gentle downhill section that follows.

Here is a map of the course.