CAN RUN ... WILL TRAVEL

The 22 DVAC athletes that lined up for Round 4 of the XCR’21 season at Cruden Farm were faced with the toughest challenge of the season so far. The six juniors that ran in the first race on the program came back with loads of good advice that included:

• Lots of pot holes! Watch outa
• Don’t go out too hard.
• Lots of Cow poo!
• Fern Alley is really nice.
• Km 3 is really rough & slippery so get a clear run before you hit the hill.

Despite all of the challenges, the results for DVAC were excellent. Three juniors won a silver medal, the Women Under 16 won their team division and the Valley Open age teams in both the Women and Men achieved good results.

Caden Murray was in the lead pack of three throughout the Men Under 20 6km race. In the final run to the line Caden made a strong move to kick past the second placed runner and hold on to claim his second silver medal for the season. His time for the 6km was 19:29.

Fieke Van Der Kamp held on to second place from start to finish in the Women Under 18 6km race. Fieke was closing the gap on the leader in the second half and crossed the finish line only six seconds behind. Her time for the tough 6km course was 23:18.

Ally Brooks, Women Under 16, crossed the finish line 8 seconds behind the eventual winner to claim the silver medal for the second individual race this season. This puts Ally in first place on the Individual Ladder for the season. Ally finished in a time of 23:56.

The Women Under 16 team were clear winners of their division. Ally was followed in by Matilda L’Estrange, 4th in 25:45, Jamieson Lander, 7th in 26:21, and Poppy Scot-Dalgleish, 14th in 29:20.

Tyler Murphy, Men Under 18, covered two laps of the four kilometer course in 30:16 to finish in 19th place.

The DVAC Open Women had a team of seven line up for the 12km event which meant that they made up teams in both Division 2 (4 member) and Division 4 (3 member). The Valley team in Division 2 finished 4thout of 14 teams while the team in Division 4 finished 3rd out of 6 teams. Debbie McKenzie, Joanne Clarke and Karen Quinn made a Women 50+ team that finished 3rd out of 18 teams.

Jessica Campbell made a welcome return to competition after injury and led the Valley team home. Jessica covered the 12km in 53:36. Sarah Leeming came in next in 56:26.

The six member DVAC Open Men Division 2 team finished 9th out of the 14 teams at Cruden Farm. First runner home, Dylan Littlejohn, maintained a consistent pace throughout the 12km and finished in 44:13. He was followed in by Blake Barnes, 44:31, Brody McCarthy, 46:30, Matthew Thompson, 49:04, Jordan Chapman, 50:57, and Damien Clifford, 57:00.

Scott Barnes, 57:24, and Andrew McKenzie, 59:30, still won valuable points for the DVAC team in Division 5 to finish 4th out of 8 teams. Damien, Scott and Andrew also made up a Men 50+ team that finished 15th out of the 37 teams in their division.

Thanks go to the following: Maryann Murray for organising the post run spread; David Armstrong for getting the Valley tent in such a favourable position; and Lyn Davis for Time Keeping.

Full results at AV Results Hub

Results, photos and video courtesy of Athletics Victoria. Article by Max Balchin.

Results: Women

Results: Men