The minor watercourse that most of the six courses crossed a number of times was one of the most unifying aspects to the 2005 WA middle distance champs. With the average rainfall for June already passed, a flowing wide and deep river was present! The event was held in the granite detail of Mt Billy’s slopes – the location of the Easter 2003 day 3. With the start, finish and a spectator leg all in the assembly area the sounds of enormous splashes were clearly audible. Some competitors such as Rachel West and Cath Chalmers chose with speed and conservatism to cross at the start triangle ‘bridge’ again, others such as Eoin Rothery, Ian Dalton and Rhys Challen tested the rising depths around their shoulders.

All of the hard courses were technical – in the rock detail of this great hillside with a lot of changes in direction. These courses all mostly resembled a tangled knot, inspired by Noel Schoknecht’s Umana NOL middle distance course of May. Karen Staudte had a clean and fast run placing first for the W21s with Cath Chalmers, Rachel West and Leida Williams just behind. These top four within 9%, 10% and 17%. Craig Dufty, John Toomey, Eoin Rothery (pictured, just after this return to form) and Ian Dalton making up the top four in M21. These fastest times were within 2%, 20% and 26%. Rhys Challen running M18 and a strong contender for the Schools Team was just behind these top four.

The 44 seconds separating Craig Dufty and John Toomey was reflected in other close times throughout the event. Deb Dowson and Rosalie McCauley in W40s recorded the same time. With 40 seconds separating runners in the W45, 45 seconds in the M60 and 5 seconds between Rhys Kessell and Oscar McNulty in the M12s.

OA President Bob McCreddin was the controller for the event and ended up carrying out a great deal of work for us setters, even to the extent of rescuing a taped control site from an original minor watercourse bend that had become the middle of a lake. A great event to ‘run’ and see run.

Full results on Splitbrowser.