Runner comes of age
Rebecca Hurley might have to rethink her mantra that she is ‘not really a runner’ after winning her second Stawell Amateur Athletic Club race three starts after her maiden success in her rookie season.
Hurley and Naomi Hunter, 12th and 13th in a Concongella Vineyards run the week before, staged spectacular form reversals to quinella a six-and-a-half-kilometre handicap on a muddy and sometimes slippery course at Horsham on Saturday.
Hurley was the fifth female in the past six races to score victory.
Even more astounding was Hurley’s winning time of 36.02 minutes which, albeit on flatter ground, was 4.34 minutes faster than her performance on a twisting and turning course through the grapevines and forest hill climb at Concongella.
“I was third to start and knowing that Gary Saunders had nine minutes start on me and that Naomi was 2.5 minutes ahead I went out really fast, probably too fast,” she said.
“But the flat course really suited me. I was able to get into a rhythm, dodging puddles and avoiding most of the corrugations by running on the side of the road.”
Surging to the lead with half the course still to travel, Hurley’s tactics were so effective that by the time she greeted timekeepers she had extended her winning margin to a dominant 2.46 minutes, easily the widest margin of the 11 races so far this season.
The ‘not really a runner’ has grown so much in confidence with regular training and racing that she has entered an event at Melbourne Marathon Festival on October 13.
In a one-kilometre sub-junior race, sixyear-old Chloe Hunter scampered to a five-second win over Jerome Baker, denying him back-to-back victories, with Eva Hurley a close third.
The club has a bye this weekend and will join Stawell and Ararat Cross Country Club for an eight-kilometre Great Western Classic at Bests winery on July 14. Fun runners are welcome.
Flying Fenn in inspired win
Inspired by the effort of Mark Thompson, running on invitation in a Thompson Family Handicap in Ararat a week before, Paul Fenn turned on the turbochargers on Sunday to win an eight-kilometre Trounson Family Handicap for the first time.
The 2015-16 Stawell and Ararat Cross Country Club champion had endured a forced absence from the club with a highgrade plantar fasciitis foot injury but had already returned to form, winning at the last of only four starts this season in May.
“I’ve always enjoyed a friendly rivalry with Mark over the years, we’re good mates,” Fenn said.
“But when I heard that he’d run 30 minutes flat in the eight-kilometre Thompson I couldn’t let him get one over on me.”
The flying Fenn could not have expected to get near Thompson’s time in the 28th Trounson, which is a much tougher course with steep hills, deep gullies and uncertain footing through bushland terrain. But the 33.29 minutes he recorded was 8.46 minutes faster than Ian Mccready’s next best.
More remarkably, he gave up to 20 minutes start to the slower runners and yet his winning margin over Sandra Barwick was just on 1.5 minutes. Jack Trounson was a gallant third.
The cross-country club also has a bye this weekend.