Saturday 9 April 2016 – 5 km Handicap

April 9, 2016

Box Hill AC has run this event now for 25 years and inevitably someone runs the Bennettswood course a lot quicker than predicted. That happened again this year.  However, of more interest was the fact that we had four runners who bettered 16 minutes which is noteworthy.  I don’t think that this has occurred previously in our race.

Isabelle Napier’s estimate of her expected race time was the most inaccurate of all the starters and consequently, she won by over two minutes. This is sure to be remembered by the handicapper next year! Nevertheless this was an extremely good run by Isabelle, who is not used to running more than 30m on the pole vault runway! Second was Tony Rule who also ran much faster than predicted.  Third was Blake Lucas who was clearly treated way too sympathetically by the handicapper. Andre Waring impressed in fourth place recording a very quick 15:46.  Others to run extremely fast were Matt O’Donnell; (15:52), Alex Ritchie (15:58) and Steve Dinneen, who ran 15:13 in a fine hit out prior to the Cross Country Relays.  Zac Hunter also performed creditably recording 16:32.  The fastest female was Julie Norney who took 19:12 to complete this relatively flat course.

Thanks to Peter Stefanos, Graeme Olden and Chris O’Connor who attended to the setting out of the course and the handicap marks and Bert Pelgrim who took the times at the finish.

Race details