After his third placing last week Steve Baird found that little bit extra to finish strongly and take out the Stawell Amateur Athletics Club David O Jones Mitre 10 handicap on Saturday.
Starting from the Three Jacks Reserve north-west of Stawell, seventeen senior runners lined up in perfect sunny conditions for the 6.5 km race.
Front marker Gary Saunders set a good early pace but it soon became apparent that the middle markers were going to figure strongly in the later stages of the race.
With 2km to go Ivan McDonald was looking a likely winner but Steve Baird dug deep to find some hidden reserves and proved too strong in the closing stages, going on to win by a narrow margin from McDonald, with Bob Freeland coming in third.
Colin Barnett ran the fastest time of 23min 45sec. Jacinta Collier was the fastest female in 27min 48sec.
A good field of 13 runners lined up for the 4km junior event. After finishing a close second last week, a determined Thomas Blair overpowered the rest of the field and went on to score a good win with Harry Steggall second and the improving Nathan Watson third.
Fastest time was Marcus Scott in 15min 41sec. The fastest girl was Naomi Jamieson in 18min 16sec.
The sub-juniors ran a 2km out and back race with new club member Lachlan Hamilton scoring his first win from Georgia Barnett, and Heidi Sudholz third. Heidi also ran the fastest time for the girls with 8min 38sec.
The fastest boy was Tobias Blair in 9min 6sec.