XCR Round 4 Cruden Farm - 13 June 2026

13 of us headed down to Cruden Farm yesterday for the 12k Cross Country. We haven't been to Cruden for a few years and with memories of mud and creek jumping and hills and slippery sloppy trails, it wasn't surprising our numbers were down a little bit.

But it was dry for most of the day and conditions were pretty good. There was only one small creek to step across and most people manged to keep dry runners all the way around.

First away was Matt in the U20 7k. He ran well and was amazingly nearly 20 minutes quicker than when he last ran there 3 years ago over the same distance.

Then our women were off. Niamh finished well - 3rd in her age group. Then in a surprising twist Janice, who had been flagging that she was sore and doubtful to run, came through strongly and passed Wendy to be our 2nd runner in. Then Wendy and Em not far behind with Petra completing our womens field.

The men started just before the rain came, and fortunately most of us finished before it really bucketed down. The Waverley tent kept us mostly dry afterwards.

Davin had flagged that he was doubtful to finish with his heart rate playing up. He did finish though, and super impressively with his best winter points of the season, running an impressive 47:21 and placing 2nd in his age group behind the freakingly good John Meagher. Then myself, Daniel, Ernie and wait - is that Smurf finishing just behind Ernie and in a repeat performance of the day he sprinted past Nic at Ballarat in the dying metres, he nailed Frank Bertei from Nunawading, flying past in the last 50m and giving him wind burn, and somehow also the runner ahead of him. The Smurf is back. That's his biggest run of the season and turned the tables on Michael who had him covered in the first 2 races, and Nic who had him covered in the last 3. Nic and Michael finished in his wake.

Our women were missing our gun runner Bec, but still manged to place 2nd in Div 3, our best result of the season, and 2nd in 50+, also our best result of the season. Well done ladies.

Our men placed 3rd in Div 4, 3rd in 50 and 4th in 60. It's the first time we've been beaten in 50+ this season, but given we were missing Smoothy, Martin, House and Tim (4 of our best 5 runners) it was a pretty good result.

Overall the mens winner was Ed Marks (GHY) by over 2 minutes, who continues his awesome form. The women’s winner was Alice Oakley Kerr (San) who was 5th with a lap to go but just moved through the field to win comfortably. Sandringham won both Mens and Womens Div 1 again comfortably.

Our Waverley results:
Female Open
12km: Niamh O'Reilly 1:00:43; Janice Marston 1:08:45; Wendy Masters 1:11:26; Emily Stokes 1:14:22; Petra Spiteri 1:22:27;
Male Open
12km: Davin Hopper 47:21; James Atkinson 51:27; Daniel Spiteri 52:30; Ernest Lim 56:02; Ewen Vowels 56:21; Nicholas Spiteri 1:02:02; Michael Jansen 1:02:41;
Male 20
7km: Matt Harvey 33:16;

Full results are at: https://athsvic.resultshub.com.au/#
Our next event is the Road Relay (usually at Sandown, but this year at Calder) on Sunday 28th June. Please let me know if you can run to help me organise teams.

We also have a weekend away coming up at Wilsons Promontory on 1-2 August. This is always an awesome weekend at one of the most beautiful spots in Victoria. We have a couple of spots left, so please rsvp in the Team App if you can make it.

Good luck to Tony George competing in the Comrades Marathon in South Africa this weekend, and Tim Stickley in the Traralgon Marathon.