XCR Round 8 Ballarat 15k Road Race - Sat 10 Aug
It was uncharacteristically perfect weather for the Ballarat 15K today. Sunny and warm and hardly any wind.
We had a smaller Waverley team today, with a few away and injured, but still a good quality group who lined up for the 15k challenge. First away was Matt in the U20 6K. He pulled out his best run of the season with a sizzling 24:32. Just over 4 minute k pace, signalling that Matt is back. The hamstring niggle is getting better and Matt is on fire.
Then it was the 15k with both men and women starting together. The field size was just over half the Lakeside 10k size 2 weeks earlier, and it was a fairly wide start so it wasn’t too congested compared to Lakeside, even for us back in the pack.
Our first in, for just the second time this season was Davin. He turned the tables on House from their last race and came in just 10 seconds ahead of the mighty House, who confessed he might have come in a bit the worse for wear after a big night out. It’s only their second head-to-head this season, so one-all. Not far behind them was Martin, making up our 50+ team, and this time, after narrowly losing to Box Hill last round, we pipped them by just 1 point. That makes it 4 wins each for the season but we’re 2 points ahead on the ladder with 2 rouns to go. Very tight. If we can beat them in the half, we might just do it.
Next in was Beck in 62.42, a fantastic 37th place in the women. Then Daniel with a pb in 63.11. Daniel somehow manged to run the 15k at a faster pace than his 10k, a cracking run showing he’s getting right back to form after his trip to Europe. Niamh was next in 66.53, and I was 10 seconds behind. Niamh and I ran together for nearly 3k after the 10k mark, but then Niamh’s arch rival Michelle Hawks from Ballarat caught up, and Niamh threw in a surge to try to break her. She didn’t break Michelle, but she broke me. My hamstring didn’t handle it and I had to stop and walk for a bit. But I was very surprised and happy to finish, only expecting to get through 1 lap at the most with the calf niggle. Another injured runner was not far behind me. Ernie had a fall on Tuesday at training and grazed his leg and elbow and hurt his glute. Looking like a fallen Tour de France rider, Ernie hobbled around in a fair degree of pain, but also managed to finish. Coming past Ernie, in one of his best runs of the season was Smurf. Smurf is in full marathon training mode, and after 2 warm up laps managed a great 15k, before running another 5k warm down. I think that’s 32k all together.
Michael Jansen rolled through in 84.54. Then Nick fresh off a 50k trail ultra event the day before at Wangaratta, somehow managed to make his legs run another 15k today. At 1 stage, Harvs came past him with about a k to go, and Nick, still with bad memories of Smurf outkicking him at the Ballarat 10k, wasn’t going to let that happen again and hammered home the last k. Not quite sure how he made his legs do that. Harvs to be fair was battling a calf injury which he strained in the last 2 events. On hearing that Nick had just run 50k the day before, Harvs responded typically with "If I’d known that I would have run 60k the day before.
Our team results were surprisingly good with Men Div 4 and Div 5 both placing 4th, and our depleted womens team of 2 runners somehow finishing 5th in Div 3. Our highlight was our win in Men 50+.
Our results:
Male 20
6km: Matt Harvey 24:32;
Female Open
15km: Rebecca Kirkham 1:02:42; Niamh O’Reilly 1:06:53;
Male Open
15km: Davin Hopper 57:58; Stephen Paine 58:08; Martin Spiteri 58:42; Daniel Spiteri 1:03:11; James Atkinson 1:07:03; Ewen Vowles 1:08:03; Ernest Lim 1:09:15; Michael Jansen 1:14:54; Nicholas Spiteri 1:25:01; Michael Harvey 1:25:48;
Full results are at: https://athsvic.resultshub.com.au/#
The fastest times were Men 45:11 by Bailey Murzecki-Hince from Sandringham and Women 50:55 by Sarah Klein from Frankston.
