Recent weeks have seen the Club plagued by bad weather. By contrast, at Sunday’s race at Railton a beautiful clear day greeted competitors as they arrived in Pioneer Park so that a good-sized field assembled for the start.
The course takes runners on back streets and through a bush track before heading up the tough Newbed Road hill and continuing to complete a circuit.
This was the final race before the big one next week – the Wynyard to Burnie Feature race – and was penalty free until after that event. Consequently, it was expected to be a very close contest and it was outside the winner.
Young Turners Beach runner, Sabrina Shields, showed the more seasoned competitors a clean pair of heels and recorded a comfortable victory by forty seconds.
This is Shields’ first serious season with the Club following on from a handful of races last year and the increased competition has certainly paid off. She is having a big year, as she also plays football with the Ulverstone women’s team which recently won the north-west premiership.
The consistent Josh Febey ran into second place and with it favouritism for next week’s event although he did not have much to spare over the next runners to finish, Ben Brockman, Kathy Franks and Gerard Lowry.
Others to stand out included Mark Saint John, Rhian Miles and the backmarker, Club champion, Tom Murton.
Murton was fastest man (31:49) with Daile Bennett-Moyle (43:31) fastest woman.
The nominated time winners were Lucy van Rooyen, Libby Crispin and Malcolm Nutting.
