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Salient. The Newspaper of Victoria University College. Vol. 19, No. 8. July 1, 1955

[Introduction]

In one of the roost hotly contested races in the history of the event the Varsity harriers emerged victorious for the second year in succession. The race was characterised by some brilliant individual efforts, but the basis of success was undoubtedly teamwork, a feature that has typified many winning performances in the past three seasons. Despite the atrocious overhead conditions, that prevailed throughout the contest the old record that stood to the credit of Lyndale (Auckland) was slashed by over 7 minutes.

The team in order of running was: M. Browne, J. Ryan, M. Truebridge, R. Crange, I. Sussex, T. Beaglehole, R. Gilberd, A. Gow, J. Hawke and G. Stevens.

The field got under way in pouring rain, and racing along the Hutt Road the leaders soon sorted themselves out. Mike Browne, together with the Scottish man set a cracking pace and the pair opened up a gap that was steadily increased until the Petone change-over. Browne hung on tenaciously and was headed at the end if the lap by only a few seconds. John Ryan, a first-year runner, hotly pursued the leader to Talta, and at the end of the second lap only a small margin separated the two teams. Ryan's run in the light of his relative inexperience in such a race was highly creditable. Mike Truebridge did not perform quite as well as expected and at Upper Hutt Varsity had dropped back to third place behind Scottish and Masterton.

Rod Crange running the Te Mania lap made up considerable ground on Masterton but at the change-over Scottish had obtained a handy lead of three minutes. Ian Sussex entrusted with the testing Mangaroa lap, scuttled over the foothill in brilliant fashion, with the result that at Kaitoke the Scottish lead had dwindled to about one minute with Masterton just holding on to second place.

Running up the Rimutakas Tim Beaglehole swept past Masterton and despite a gallant chase behind the Scottish man the latter had two minutes in hand at the summit. Dick Gilberd running the gruelling downhill lap in record-breaking style reduced this deficit considerably and at the Featherston change-over Varsity was trailing Scottish by Just over a minute. Tony Gow inflicted with the exasperating monotony of the long straights to Greytown was set a difficult task to catch the leader and despite a near record run was not able to bridge the gap.

The crisis had been reached and Clem Hawke in his lap to Clareville rose to the occasion magnificently. Running with great determination he all but pegged the leader back and the honour of putting us into the lead was loft with Graeme Stevens.

Stevens ran past the Scottish man very early in his lap and with a bewildering pace dashed into Masterton a clear winner by over five minutes, amid great excitement.

The winning time was 5 hours 44 minutes and several other teams finished Inside 6 hours, the first time that more than two teams have done so.