Today we gathered at St Leonards track in beautiful sunshine for our races. St Leonards is always a fun special day especially as the juniors race for the Alex Walley Memorial Shield and the Samantha Hellyer memorial trophy. It was lovely to have Mike Walley along today to present the prizes and we appreciated his presence and prizes for our junior runners.
The Division 2 and 3 races also get to try and wrestle with the colorful rubber bands. Good news is Charlie Reese has worked out the fix for the wrist bands next year, so stay tuned (we won’t need people handing them out, though thank you to all who assisted with that today). Thanks Charlie, might get you on the committee.
In the long course race it was the second and final sealed handicap and mass start for the year. We have set up a survey for feedback on sealed handicaps go and let us know what you think here. Our winner today was a club stalwart and man who has run with the club for years and that was Tony Darsaklis. He is running into some good form and is always an encouraging presence around the club, it was great to see him take out a win. The man who runs in ladies shoes Mark Padgett came second and in third was the man with ladies shoes and socks Nathan Gibb. Both great runners, but you know what they say about small feet….small shoes.
We had just scratched the ever popular Rob Tatchell, when suddenly he appeared, think I heard Celine Dion start playing as he waltzed across the oval. Poor Katie Proctor would have struggled to run without Tatch talking to her the whole way.
The fastest male today was Cayb Woods , making Ricky and Matt both eat his dust today to take out a club champion point, great run Cayb. The fastest female was Sarah Menzie with some blistering running, that makes the female club champion very very interesting indeed. Something to look forward to at the dinner I guess.
In Division Two the kids got to run for the Samantha Hellyer Trophy and the adults for glory. They all took off at blistering speed, especially Charlie Reese, winning the first lap!! unfortunately it was a six lap race. The winner after handicaps was Colin Smith, I believe Colin holds the club Canadian record around the St Leonards track, well done Col. In second place was Mel Jessup who is running well coming back from having her bub recently and operating on about three minutes sleep a night. In third place was Harry Jackson who was roaring around the track, Harry also took out the aforementioned trophy.
The fastetst male was Harry Jackson and the fastest female was Rosie Jackson, both ran well, well done Rosie coming back from Covid, I am still using it as my excuse.
In Division 3 with the sealed handicaps it was the speedy Freddy Barnewall taking out the Alex Walley memorial trophy with a speedy run around the track. Second place was Flynn Murray who seemed to be back for his next rubber band before you could blink today and in third was Chloe Padgett who is running well and looks so happy out there, not sure how people can smile and run.
The fastest male was Flynn Murray and the fastest female was Emily Padgett, the girls club champion is a tight contest this year.
Full results available here.
Thank you to Terry White Chemmart Prospect and to Christine for her support, she has since sold/retired from the role and we appreciate her support.
Thanks to all our volunteers today especially those handing out the bands, its a thankless task.
Next week we are off the Blackstone for the 5km race and the week after is the Feature Race at Chromeys. We will have a bbq with a gold coin donation next week thanks to Ricky and Robyn and we will do the sweep for the feature race.
To allow this to happen entries for BOTH BLACKSTONE AND THE FEATURE RACE CLOSE 8PM THIS THURSDAY 18th AUGUST. To enter the feature race you must have raced three races in the division to enter.
Entries will be open for both on the site tonight.
