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Blair Wins Final Race
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| Peter Blair |
| Click to enlarge |
The Stawell
Amateur Athletic Club held its final race for the
season over the usual 5km Big Hill course, in cold,
often drizzly conditions. Twenty-four senior runners
lined up for the start, with Aggregate leader Peter
Steggall running in spite of a cold, to protect
his 10 point margin over Col Barnett. Steggall
only needed to finish to clinch the Aggregate for
2005.
Course marker
Charlie Jones was kept busy retrieving course markers
from the bushes, with
some local
low life proving to be a constant problem.
The
steep inclines and fast downhills were more suited
to the fitter, stronger runners, with
Peter Blair showing good form from his mid
field mark.
Over the second of the two laps, back markers
Col Barnett, Jon Dugdale and Garry Rice were
also moving
rapidly through the field, and with 150 metres
to go, had race leader Peter Blair in their
sights.
Blair still
had a handy six second lead over
Dugdale but Barnett was only a further seven
seconds back
and flying home.
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| Greta Duke |
| Click to enlarge |
Blair set off
up the final hill and down the short finishing
straight, just
managing to
hold off Dugdale
to cross the line with a three second advantage.
Barnett was third one second behind. Garry
Rice came in fourth.
Col Barnett
ran the fastest race time of 17min 44sec, with
the fastest female
time
of 20min
51sec recorded by Susie Ellis.
The juniors
also ran over the same 5km course, and many beat
the senior runners
home. The
Junior Aggregate was still up for grabs,
with Nat Watson
holding a 2 point advantage over Thomas
Blair, with Emily Parnaby a chance to
draw with
Watson if she won. Blair needed to win
the race to
overtake Watson, but could only manage
fourth place, while
Parnaby came in third, even though she
took a whopping 2 minutes 10 sec off
her previous
best
for that
distance.
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| Elly Barnett |
| Click to enlarge |
The junior
race was won by Greta Duke, on the comeback trail
after the time off with the flu. Greta went
out hard from the start, and was not headed. Jacinta
Cameron
ran
well and
came in second
while
Emily
Parnaby was third.
Fastest junior
was Thomas Blair with 19min 58sec, and the fastest
junior
girl was
Emily Parnaby
in 21min 38sec.
The sub-juniors
ran a 1500m course, with Elly Barnett putting in
a
great
run to
just hold
off a fast
finishing Kieran Schneider. Tiny
Liam Burns came home strongly to
take out
third place.
Fastest
sub-junior time went to Liam
Scott in 5min 3sec, and fastest sub-junior
girl
was Elly
Barnett
with 5min 26sec.
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