Lofthouse
Defends Race Win
Veteran campaigner Keith Lofthouse
turned the sense of old failures into back to back
victories in the five kilometre Ivan McDonald Hairdressing
Handicap last Saturday.
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| Keith
Lofthouse |
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Keith recalled running second
in the prestigious Eaglehawk to Bendigo road race
in 2002, thinking it would be "the closest I'll ever
get to glory",
when he made plans to defend last year's win in the
Lois Trimble Handicap at Stawell's Big Hill.
"Many
years ago," said Keith, "a wise old mentor
by the name of Frank Neill told me how to run the
hills into Bendigo and I always went really well
there, without ever winning, so I still equate it
to failure."
He added, "running the
Big Hill at Stawell is much like Bendigo, only in
reverse. You start uphill at Bendigo and downhill
at Stawell, but you have to attack from the outset
because the downhill sections are fast and your opponents
are hard to catch if they already have a start."
Keith
prepared in a somewhat unorthodox manner for the
Stawell race by running the 15.2 km Grampians Springtime
Classic, from Moyston to Ararat, only six days before.
"Someone
said it wasn't an ideal event to tackle before a
five kilometre race but I thought it was perfect.,"
said keith. "It had big hills, with bitumen all the
way, and Stawell is nearly the same. The main thing
was to freshen up for the shorter race, which I did
by having an easy week just running sprints."
In
stretching a 1 min 35 secs gap between himself and
runner-up Gary Howden, Keith scored one of the easiest
wins of the year, but still ran two seconds slower
than his winning time in 2009.
"I might have
attacked too fiercely early on," Keith reasoned, "but
I think the Moyston to Ararat probably took the edge
off Rhonda Clark, Gaynor Radovic and maybe a
couple of others, so the winning margin flattered
me. I was happy to be able to cling onto
the tail of Garry Rice, because he usually beats
me out of sight, so I knew I was in with a chance,
if I could stick with him."
The Big Hill race, as
usual, marked the end of the SAAC's 18-race season.
In the junior section of the
race, Paris
Panozzo was too strong for Tobias Blair, while Layla
Atherton took out sub-junior event.
Gaynor
Radovic had an unassailable lead in the open Club
Aggregate going into the race, in which she finished
fifth, and easily accounted for David McAllister
and Keith Lofthouse, who got up to tie for second.
David and Nathaniel Warren are Open Men club champions
and the ever-reliable Kim Baker won the Open Women's
title.
Tobias won the Junior Aggregate,
but there was an unprecedented three-way tie for
the honour of Junior Club Champion between Raine
Mackley, Luca O'Flynn and Liam Scott.
By Keith Lofthouse
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