Bundoora XC

The hills were alive with the sound of muddy foot stomps as runners tackled the lovely rolling plains of Bundoora Park. With a number of runners returning to race, the White Train team was like an army with harmony looking to put in a strong performance.

The Bundoora course has been described like the wings of a bird that rises from the lakes to the trees, or more simply a really bloody hilly terrain. The encouraging support by all team members, especially ABS (Al Bryant Smith) really gave us a little boost to help us up that back hill. There was some further respite from the burning pain in our legs, later down the course in the form of the visible orange cladded race Officials who were extremely friendly and supportive in navigating us through the finishing section of each lap.

     
world class race officials          Hammer going up ‘that hill’

The first to race was Rosie Donegan, our rising star who continued her strong season taking out the U/20 Women’s 6km comfortably. The Open Women’s raced over 8km with all nine runners putting great efforts. The top four women’s for Div 1 were Sophie Barker (3rd overall), Sarah McSweeney, Julie McNamara, and Sarah Emons. Also great running by Fiona Enter on making the Div 2 team. The Open Men’s fielded 17 runners with the top 6 runners for Div 1 were Mark Kirwan, Zac Newman, David Paroissien, Grant Morgan, David Miller, and Hamish Beaumont. Well done to Felix Wierstra on his first race with the club.

The official results have the women placing 3rd in Div 1 and 5th in Div 2 and the men 5th in Div 1, 5th in Div 2 and 2nd in Div 4. A big well done to everyone who participated, and a big pat on the back for the volunteers, Tim Thomas, and  Laura Portaro for their time and effort.