Logan Park Road Race

By Richard Sykes | Posted: Sunday May 19, 2024

A typical Dunedin winter's day dawned, beautiful clear skies and barely a breath of wind.

Perfect conditions for 10 of our finest young athletes to run until they collapsed over the finish line in the Logan Park Cross Country. This year we have a young team with 7 Year 9 and 10 students supporting 3 senior runners in Year 12 and 13. A young William Bolter stepped into the shoes left by his brother last year and was backed up by Andy Scrimgeour and Rowan Hamilton also in Year 9. This was their first cross country as part of a secondary school team. There was a twinkle in Will's eye as he declared that he was very excited by the prospect of running till he collapsed and then getting up and running some more. Year 10 was led by the calm head of Henry Hodgson, now a veteran of the cross country circuit, Sam Hobbs, Leo Garden also returned this year bigger and stronger than last season and were joined by Riley Horne, typically a sprinter but prepared to have a go at the longer distances.

When the junior race started, the pace was typically hot and found a few runners out early on as the young athletes eventually settled into their rhythm. The lead runner set a blisteringly fast pace and, unfortunately for us, managed to maintain this for the entire race. Will and Henry sensibly dropped off the leader but the fast start was going to take a toll eventually. Sam, Andy and Riley ran their own races and did not get too caught up in the ferocious pace of the first 200 metres. When all was said and done, William Bolter was the fastest of our runners this time with a very impressive time of 8' 25" putting him in 4th. This was within 3 seconds of second place which was a great result for his first event. Henry Hodgson was 2nd across the line for OBHS in 8th in 8'45". Sam Hobbs, Riley Horne and Andy Scrimgeour all finished strongly with less than 30 seconds between them in 16th, 19th and 21st respectively.

The senior race started, Ruie went in with a clearly stated plan in the van to sit in and out kick everyone at the end. This lasted about 40 metres after which Ruie started to open up a gap that never really looked like closing. Gus ran within a group of 5 or 6 runners sitting off their shoulder and letting them do most of the heavy lifting. Max found a pace that he could live with in his first long cross country race. As the first lap finished not much had changed, Ruie continued to run a race against the clock, Gus maintaining a comfortable position in the lead group behind Ruie and Max in the group behind that. The second lap found a lot of the runners out and many slipped back as experienced runners kicked on. In the end Ruie won comfortably in a time of 15'42" for what was supposed to be a 5km race (gps for the boys measured it as a bit shorter) this was 32 seconds clear of second and a very impressive time given he had nobody pushing him. Gus burned off most of his group and finished in 3rd with a time of 16'39" and Max came in 14th in 18'05".

All up it was a great first event and fantastic to get everyone out again, the terrific weather made for some great running.

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