McAllister
Wins at Troopers Camp
Stawell Amateur Athletic
Club rookie David McAllister stunned more seasoned
runners with a pugnacious “first-up” win
in the Oscar Furniture Troopers Camp Handicap at
Roses Gap last Saturday.
Until recently McAllister,
who had previously focused on organised fun runs,
marathons and charity runs, was content to spend
his Saturday afternoons pumping iron or pounding
out the kilometres on the treadmill at the Stawell
Leisure Centre and watching local football.
A natural
talent, McAllister, 39, finished twenty-second of
453 runners (the only Stawell representative) in
the Great Ocean Road Marathon in May, but wouldn’t
have dreamed of winning a cross country race in August,
let alone the toughest on the SAAC calendar.
However,
after a couple of invitational hit-outs with the
club, McAllister “caught the bug” and
lined-up as a new member for the gruelling eleven
kilometre event. Non-competing junior Liam Scott
acted as pacemaker for the first kilometre of the
race with club champion Nathaniel Warren, Gary Howden,
Ray Scott and McAllister in close attendance. But
young Liam had done his dash before the field started
to climb when the event settled into a personal battle
between pairs of runners, ensuring a competitive
race.
“He (McAllister) was up my behind like
a cattle prod all the way,” said Warren, who
was first across the line in a time of forty-six
minutes and sixteen seconds but lost to the newcomer
once handicaps were applied. Only seconds separated
closest combatants Howden and Scott, who finished
scratched and bloodied after a fall while tackling
the “hill of horrors”, perhaps over the
same rock that nearly brought his son, Liam, to grief.
Almost
impossible to run, the steep and rocky slope is full
of deep gouges and craters and only Susie Ellis,
the tungsten-tough third placegetter and Scott, managed
not to walk over the most treacherous terrain.
Rallying
on bitumen for the last two kilometres, Keith Lofthouse
finished fourth on handicap after chasing “downhill
racer” Paul Atherton
and Charlie Jones in a sprint to the finish.
Sommer
Darnell won the sub-junior division of the race over
two kilometres.
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