Early start pays big dividends

An early morning alarm call and drive over the Whangamoas paid off royally for Nelson athlete Patrick Dravitzki on Saturday morning.

His bold decision to take on the daunting King and Queen of the Withers course for the first time was rewarded when he won the King of the Withers title in the smart time of 45 minutes 15 seconds.

Patrick lined up alongside 36 other runners at the start of the iconic 10km event on the Wither Hills Farm Park and ultimately made no race of it, coming in over two minutes ahead of second-placed Alex Roberts (47.41).

“I had a free weekend so thought I would come over,” says Patrick, “I have been looking at a few events to do and saw that this one was on, so just drove over this morning.”

A keen mountain biker, Patrick says he is beginning to focus more on running.
“I have only really begun to get into [running] over the last year or so. I like the hilly stuff, and I do a lot of hill running in Nelson, so this is quite similar. I’m really enjoying it actually.”

He described the Withers course as “good fun”, although mentioning the steep inclines at the top were “as hard as it gets” and it was tough to get up to full speed on the long downhill to the finish.

“But I’ll definitely come back next year,” he promised. “I love speed stuff like this … it’s a great course.”

While Patrick joins an illustrious list of Marlborough running royalty for the first time, the Queen of the Withers needs no introduction.

Megan Graham has won the event so many times she is hard pressed to remember exactly how many.

General consensus puts the figure at 11, the mother-of-three winning the women’s title in imperious fashion again on Saturday.

Megan finished third overall in a time of 48.12, the former national squash champion gliding over the course in typical fashion, although not threatening her best time of 44.22 set in 2014. The hybrid winner was youngster Jack Cutts, who completed the course in 1.00.10.