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Monster slayer Dennehy seeks cross country success in Taupo

New Zealand Road Mile champion Brigid Dennehy hopes taking on the challenge of taming the “Concrete Monster” in training has acted as the perfect preparation for the New Zealand Cross Country Championships on Saturday.

The 28-year-old North Harbour Bays athlete, who wiped almost four minutes from her PB earlier this month to finish 12^th in 1:14:59 at the Gold Coast Marathon, now turns her attention to the undulations of the iconic Spa Thermal Park.

Dennehy is clearly in great form as evidenced by her performance in Queensland and she believes the tough training she put in earlier this winter will bear fruit on Saturday.

“I definitely like the hills,” explains Brigid, who is coached by Paul Hamblyn as part of New Zealand’s premier women’s endurance training group – the Bays Babes. “My recent elevation training has been low, but we did a lot of hill training earlier in the winter. I love a 30km loop called the Concrete Monster in the Waitakere Ranges, which starts and finishes in Titirangi Village. We take on a 20-minute uphill run in the middle (of the 30km loop) and then face a sharp five-minute uphill at the end up a concrete driveway. It is like vertical and a challenge to keep running.”

Growing up in county Kerry in the West of Ireland, Brigid says she a long-time affinity for cross country running. Much of her early training was done barefoot on the grass and she recalls much of her primary racing was off road on the cross country tracks and mountain racing trails.

In 2021 she placed sixth at the New Zealand Cross Country Championships at Chisholm Links in Dunedin but missed last year’s event at Spa Thermal Park because she was enjoying an extended holiday in her native Ireland.

Dennehy, however, does have experience of racing at the iconic cross country course in the central North Island – having raced and finished sixth at the North Island Cross Country Championships there in 2021. She therefore has an understanding of the challenges of the course and acknowledges an ability to run the downhills proficiently is just as important as the uphill sections.

“I noticed (from running the North Island Cross Country Championships) that athletes got a big advantage from running the downhills well, so we have done some work on running the downhills and focused on this area in training,” she says.

Dennehy, a New Zealand resident, endured a difficult track season but bounced back to claim some major scalps to secure her maiden national title with victory in Rotorua at the inaugural New Zealand Road Mile Championship in May.

Since then, she has gone from strength to strength and was delighted with her half marathon performance in Gold Coast. So, what has been the key to her current form?

“After the track season we just had to press the reset button and put that behind us,” she explains. “Some of the track workouts can really cook me but I do well under high mileage with lots of easy running and that’s what I’ve focused on. The New Zealand road mile champs and Gold Coast has been a nice confidence booster.”

Leading into Saturday she acknowledges the quality of the opposition she will face, but she harbours some big ambitions in Taupo.

“I would love to podium, but everyone would love to win it and that is the number one goal,” she adds.

***Follow the livestream action at the New Zealand Cross Country and Relay Championships on the Athletics New Zealand YouTube page.

Day 1 session 1

Day 1 session 2

Day 2

***Full Individual entries here

***Relay entries here  

***Individual results link here

***Relay results link here