Shireen Crumpton (Hill City) will be racing for the $3000 winner's purse when she defends her Auckland marathon title tomorrow.
Crumpton (41) has been restricted in her training because of a deformity in her heel. She has a bursa that is attached to her Achilles tendon and it causes inflammation when she does tempo running or speed work. Crumpton has been booked in for an operation in December to rectify the problem.
In the meantime, she will defend her marathon title in Auckland and the women's title in the Kepler Challenge in Te Anau.
It will be Crumpton's 27th marathon tomorrow. She has a best time of 2hr 38min that she ran in Helsinki in 2005.
"I will be using the marathon as a training run for the Kepler Challenge," Crumpton said.
Crumpton won last year's race in Auckland in a race record time of 2hr 45min 51sec. But the opposition is tougher this year. The field includes Lisa Robertson, Maria Bentley and Australia's Kirsten Molloy.
Robertson (28), a jockey, won the national road championship. She has directed her training and racing in recent months to her debut over the marathon distance. She finished runner-up in the Sir Barry Curtis race in Auckland and won the Huntly half-marathon in May.
Bentley won the national half marathon championship in Huntly last year, while Molloy ran 2hr 46min 32sec for fifth place in the Gold Coast event in July.
Wanaka-based Oska Inkster-Baynes (20), the winner of the Dunedin race last month, has a chance of a podium spot in the half marathon that also doubles as the New Zealand championships.
Inkster-Baynes has a personal best time in the half marathon of 1hr 8min and finished fifth in the Christchurch half marathon in June in 1hr 9min. His time in the Dunedin half marathon was 1hr 12min 34sec.
Sub-four-minute miler Hayden McLaren (Auckland), in his debut over the 21.1km distance, will start as favourite.
The other contenders are Alex Parlane, former New Zealand duathlon champion and Whangarei half marathon winner Brett Dawber, Stefan Smith, twice national marathon champion Matt Dravitzki, Jonathan Jackson and Canadian mountain running representative James Richardson, who was second in the Wellington half marathon in June.
