XCR Round 8 - Ekiden Relays
The Waverley bus was up and about. Under the careful driving of Captain Birthday Boy James McEniry, we arrived safely at Myrniong despite barely being able to see out the fogged up windscreen.
There we were greeted with a different start area and quite a different course to usual. From all reports it was pretty tough out there with the course winding up and down most of the time through paddocks and muddy trails.
The withdrawal of our best runner Davin, with a late injury caused a reallocation of teams with Ernie Lim and the Birthday Boy being promoted to the first M50+ team. Petra was left the only runner in her team, and daringly hatched a plan to run the whole 3 legs on her own. She did manage to pull off 2 legs, helped by Daniel doing a rapid pit stop change of the colour bibs so that she would be directed the right way around the course.
Our big highlights were the Womens 50+ team coming home with a silver medal. Well done Niamh, Sally and Janice. Also our Mens 50+ team coming home with a bronze medal. Well done Martin, Ernie and James M. Two podium finishes made for a very successful day out.
Our women Div 3 finished in a solid 4th place with Wendy doing the long leg, welcoming back Maddie for her season debut, and then Jackie and Em. Em actually had to run a bit extra in the last leg as the marshall that was mean’t to direct them at the first fork had packed up early.
Our men Div 3 finished 12th with good work by Daniel, Julian, Peter, Matt and Nick.
Our Men 60+ team finished 6th – well done Chris Knott, Harvs and Michael J.
Our second 50+ men’s team finished 8th. Well done Slips, Smurf and Neil.
And Petra was the only one person team to complete 2 legs.
Our fastest legs were:
8.6K Martin Spiteri 34:07
7.9K Julian Russell 33:24
6.6K Niamh O’Reilly 28.57
6.1K Ernie Lim 26:17
5.6K Sally Lim 25:17
4.2K Michael Jansen 21:07
A big thank you to our helpers at Marshall points 5 and 6: Emily, Nickie, Matt, Nick, Slips, Maddie and myself.
All up a fantastic day, with some great team results, and the always awesome Waverley bus trip. Well done everyone, but a special big thank you to our bus driver – birthday boy James McEniry.
