XCR Round 5 Sandown - Sat 28 Jun

We had surprisingly good conditions at Sandown today. The usual arctic wind wasn’t around and it didn’t rain. So no real weather excuses for us this year. We had six Waverley teams. Well, five plus Michael, as the 60+ team dwindled to our 1 representative.

Our best result was our women’s 50+ team. Niamh led off and tore up the straight in the first 100m. Whilst APS led the first leg, they had no more runners, and so Waverley was the first and only team after that. Kirsten was back for her first run after 4 years of a debilitating disease that left her unable to run. It looked like she might never run again, but Kirsten kept fighting, trying new things, and eventually found a treatment that worked. Whilst it will take a bit of time to recover the fitness from 4 years of not running, it is great to see her back and a part of our medal winning 50+ women’s team again. Janice anchored, with her best time in 6 years, and it was great to see our 50+ women back on the podium, with gold medals around their necks.

Our men’s 50+ team welcomed back the House and Tim Stickley for their first runs of the season. Smoothy led us off in the sizzling time of 21.21, nearly a minute quicker than last year, and his quickest in 14 years (he did miss 10 of them), but surprisingly a couple of seconds behind a surprisingly quick Mark Frater from APS. House then somehow dropped the wrist strap, which almost cost us a place. He ran well, especially since he’s just played 18 holes in the morning, but APS’s Richard Hope was even quicker and we trailed them by just 8 seconds at the final change with Collingwood 2nd (3 seconds ahead) and Box Hill just 5 seconds behind. It was super tight into the last leg. Box Hill’s Kynan Dawes was clearly the quickest of the last runner group and quickly took the lead. APS moved clear ahead of us, but Tim soon passed Collingwood, so was sitting a clear 3rd. But then somehow in the last couple of hundred metres, Tim the Ironman found a kick and flew past APS to take second by the narrowest of margins. Mark Willetts from APS had no idea he was coming, and like a deadly assassin, our man Tim just completely surprised him. An amazing finish, and who would have thought Tim had a kick like that. Well done M50+ with Silver. Did you know that Tim is also a gun golfer who recently shot a hole in one and an amazing 69 at the National. He also recently finished the Cairns Ironman, a man of many talents. Another in that team also shot a hole in one at Royal Melbourne recently. Well done the House.

Our Womens Div 3 team was depleted during the week as first Tess, then Nickie couldn’t run. First Maddie, then Wendy stepped in to fill the gaps and ensure we had a team. Wendy was getting over COVID from a week before, and bravely offered to run. Also Maddie and Beck bravely accepted to relay change with her, and Petra filled our team. Maddie led off, and in Waverley tradition was nursing a bit of a hangover. She still magically managed to run a 2 minute pb. Wendy fought through the COVID bug and ran within a minute of last year’s time. Then Beck absolutely flew. She ran 25:05, within 3 seconds of her pb, and her best winter % points of the season. Then Petra anchored and held our 7th place. A mighty effort out of 12 teams.

Our men’s Div 4 team were solid, but missed 3 of our top runners, who were in the 50+ team, and faced some faster younger teams. Julian was impressive running 23:13, our 2nd fastest time, and only 2 weeks after the 70K+ Comrades marathon. Andrew and Ernie were both quick and within 2 seconds of each other. A breakthrough run for Ernie with his best winter points, and putting over 30 seconds on his arch-rival Beck (they’ve been within seconds of each other in most runs this year). Peter and I brought us home, but Peter has been ill and my calf went again with a k to go, so had to hobble the last section.

Our Men Div 5 team mostly ran similar times, except for Harvs, who also did his calf on the way round and had to hobble the second half. Nick also had a breakthrough run with his best winter points, despite having run about 6 marathons in the last couple of months.

And Michael did us proud in 60+, somehow single handedly finishing ahead of another team.

Our results:
Female Open
4×6.2km: (Madeline Daws: 27:23, Wendy Masters: 31:33, Rebecca Kirkham: 25:05, Petra Spiteri: 35:57) 1:59:58;
Female 50
3×6.2km: (Niamh O’Reilly: 26:43, Kirsten Jackson: 30:18, Janice Marston: 29:46) 1:26:47;
Male Open
5×6.2km: (Julian Russell: 23:13, Andrew Baxter: 24:23, Ernest Lim: 24:21, Peter Kormendy: 27:37, James Atkinson: 25:31) 2:05:05;
4×6.2km: (Matt Harvey: 28:08, Ewen Vowels: 28:35, Michael Harvey: 35:29, Nicholas Spiteri: 27:49) 2:00:01;
Male 50
3×6.2km: (David Venour: 21:21, Stephen Paine: 23:36, Tim Stickley: 23:50) 1:08:47;
Male 60
3×6.2km: (Michael Jansen: 29:09) 29:09;

W50+ 1st
M50+ 2nd
W Div 3 7th
M Div 4 13th
M 60+ 14th

Full results are at:
https://athsvic.resultshub.com.au/#