Box Hill’s womens team did not equal their brilliant results of the Brimbank Park relays, but there were still several outstanding performances at the Flemington road race. It was difficult to follow the progress of the women’d 10k race as the open, under 20 and under 18 women were all running in the same race as the the under 30 and under 18 men.
OPEN
Nikki Chapple, however, was clearly among the leading women and although she faded slightly in the second half she still finished strongly in 5th position in a time of 36:05. After not having raced for several years Nikki is likely to keep improving as the winter progresses and she will hopefully gain even better results thoughout the rest of the season.
Marion Gamble ran well to finish in 46th place in a time of 40:54 ahead of Megan Sloane 47th in 41:07, while Kerry Walker was 63rd in 45:45.
5 Nikki Chapple 36:05
46 Marion Gamble 40:54
47 Megan Sloane 41:07
63 Kerry Walker 45:45
UNDER 20
Jessica De Bruin ran well to achieve a time of 37:26 in the women’s under 20 10k, only truly outstanding runs by Victoria Mitchell of Eureka and Joanna Wall of Deakin pushed Jessica back into 3rd place.
UNDER18
Jocelyn Keage continued her great form with a huge win in the the under 18 10k. Jocelyn ran a time of 36:23 to pick up the gold medal, more than four minutes ahead of the second under 18 girl! She was also the 12th woman to finish overall, including open and under 20 runners.
Kate Thornton also ran well to finish 9th in her first 10k in a time of 48:43.
UNDER 16
Juliet Thonton ran a great race while just missing a medal in the under 16 3k event. She ran the fast time of 10:49 in finishing 4th in this event. Juliet will still be in this age group next year making her performance all the more meritorious.
Georgie McCallum also ran well, not far behind Juliet, but was passed by a couple of runners in the final sprint, to come in 7th in 11:14.
UNDER 14
Unfortunately Hayley Tomlinson’s entry for this event was late and she had to run by invitation, but her performance was truly outstanding. Not only did she easily win the girl’s under 14 3k in the brilliant time of 10:06 (more than a minute ahead of the next under 14 girl), but in so doing, she also beat all of the under 16 girls and all of the under 14 boys!
The Box Hill men continued to struggle against strong opposition with most of our higher ranked runners running well below their best at the moment, however there was keen competition amongst the leading group of runners and with the first 7 runner within one and a half minutes of each other, there is plenty of depth. Hopefully this group of runners can improve as the season progresses to lift the team up towards the front of the field once again. Scott Jackson showed that he is slowly getting back into shape to be the first Box Hill athlete to finish in 36th place. It was pleasing to see Luke Yeatman returning to form to finish just behind John Meagher who carried on his fine form from the cross country relays.
The outstanding performance of the day came from Andrew White who broke 34 minutes and finished 3rd in the Under 16 race. Andrew battled on really well after going out very fast at the start to continue on his fine form from the summer. Hopefully he can continue this form through for the rest of the winter races.
OPEN MEN
36 Scott Jackson 31:52
43 John Meagher 32:13
44 Luke Yeatman 32:16
46 Marcus Tierney 32:30
60 Graeme Olden 33:10
64 Paul Boxhall 33:19
69 Barry Lynch 33:27
108 Michael Jones 34:58
111 Adam Pepper 35:12
134 Patrick Kelly 35:52
139 Chris O’Connor36:01
182 Matt Slater 37:41
265 Wes Windsor 39:49(inv)
307 Steve Murphy 45:40
UNDER 20 MEN
10 Simon McGuiness 36:03
UNDER 18 MEN
3 Andrew White 33:58