After a series of races run in near-ideal conditions, Melbourne winter arrived with a vengeance on Saturday for the Sandown Relays. Senior team members ran 2 laps of the 3.1km auto racing circuit, while the juniors completed single laps. Keeping warm proved to be a challenge as temperatures dropped into the single digits and wind and rain swept the course. The saving grace was that the tailwind on the back straight seemed stronger than the headwind on the front straight thanks to the wind-blocking effects of the stadium. Savvy runners looked to draft behind other athletes when heading into the wind.
The F60 team of Margaret Fitzgerald, Christine Williams and Josita Hicks continued their winning ways with another first place finish. Christine was the fastest F65 runner while Margaret took 3rd in F60. The premier division women borrowed a number of 50+ women to complete their team (Annabelle Colman, Sue Hinckfuss, Claudia Haeger, Di Guiney, Christy Bonstelle) to hold on for 8th, while the actual 50+ women’s team (Silvia Warren, Belinda Blackburn, Fleur Shaw-Jones) took 5th. Annabelle was our fastest woman of the day (22:19).
On the men’s side, John Kuol was our fastest runner of the day in 19:40, just ahead of Ben Haseler (19:41). Jeremy Higlett, Laurence Tod and Aidan Jackson completed the team to take 5th in Division 3, while David Martini, Pablo Campillos, Carlo Manolitsas, Thuan Ma and Ben Tierney took the Div 4 team to 13th place.
For the men’s masters, Alan Colman outpaced his daughter for once to lead the M50 team in 22:03, and was the third fastest in his age group. Alan combined with Bruce Davie (2nd fastest M60 athlete) and Darren Templeton (2nd M55) to take 4th in their division, narrowly missing the podium. Bob Meek, Richard Dickmann and Chris Worsnop took 10th place in M60.
The junior men (Zachary Taylor, Lochlan Warren, Max Sukdara) were 12th in U18.
Next up for the Athsvic competition is the 10km cross country championships on the rolling hills of Bundoora.
Photo credit: Scott Sidley for Athletics Victoria