Fireworks at the Armory – Battles won, battles fiercely contested and importantly all came home safely at the armory. This is a truly good cross country course that is challenging for athletes and allows spectators to see the whole race in action.
With all the female races and the male O’50 and O’60 teams all starting together it made for a great spectacle. Our male O’50 team led the charge with Peter Sweeny, running a superb lap, handing over to Mark Gregory in 2nd place. Mark took chase and stepped the team position up to 1st place and at handover gave Keith Bateman a good lead. Keith flowed around the course and maintained that position. Chammy D put everything into the final leg however it was not to be enough and the team finished with a worthy 2nd place just 32s behind the winners. The male O’50 B team gave it a red hot crack with Campbell Dawson, Ken Wilson, Brendan Sands & Philip Balnave all running strongly and their combined efforts culminated in an excellent 3rd place. Naomi Tancred led out the O’40 female team, followed by Cindy, then Bronwyn (apologies for no splits) with Rona bringing the team home into a well deserved 2nd place. Rebecca started for the 50+ female team and found the going tough, Sally ran as consistently as ever with very close lap spits. Great debut run from Larissa, (welcome and great to have you in the team) who paid for a slightly too quick first lap and brilliant backing up from Naomi to bring the team home in first position.
With so many teams and age groups running together it’s very hard to see where you are in relation to your age group competitors. This was very obvious in the next race with the Men’s U18, U20, Open, O’30 and O’40 age groups all heading off together. Jimmy began and as was the case with most of our runners, ran pretty consistent across the two laps. Goddy ran competitively with fantastic looking ease running negative splits to hand over to Campbell, backing up well, who handed over the Mark also backing up. Mark surprised himself with negative splits and an overall time only 41 sec slower than his first run. When all the results were finalised we were announced as winners of the O’30 team, a great team effort.
All efforts were greatly appreciated on the day with special thanks to Rebecca changing her plans to make the 50+ female team happen as she had function to go to that night. Brendan for stepping in at the last minute, Naomi, Campbell & Mark for doubling up and enabling everyone to get a run and in complete teams with successful results.
Five teams and five medals – what a day out.
11_XC Relays