Horsham’s Daryl Scollary reaped the benefits of a rare early morning training run to narrowly end the three race winning streak of the club’s female runners last Saturday.
The “fairer sex” had dominated the cross country season with 11 wins from 17 races and an even dozen looked certain when Justine Tracey held a commanding 120 metres lead in the Youngs Sportspower Handicap with just one kilometre to run.
Daryl , however, quickly closed the gap in the last, fast downhill and in a heart-stopping finish overpowered Justine to win the 10 kilometre event by a mere three seconds, with Matilda Iglesias and Meggie Boan ensuring the girls were not outshone with a 2,3,4 finish.
Daryl, who by coincidence had won the penultimate race of the SAAC season last year, credited the win to an intense training session with the Horsham Early Morning runners during the week.
“For the first time this year I got up at about 4.30am and ran five three kilometre bursts,” he said. “I’ve been carrying a few extra kilos and that workout must have burnt a bit of the excess off – something I needed to do if I was going to be competitive over the distance.”
Daryl, who needed to run the last kilometre in under four minutes to overhaul Tracey, was in a celebratory mood after the race because it meant an early end of the season for him.
“I know there’s one race to go but I won’t be there because for me now it’s beer and fishing. I’m off to Lake Wartook for an annual trip with the boys (mates), but the running club is a family affair in which we can all participate so I’ll be back again next year.”
In the Junior division of the race over four kilometres, the promising Paris Panozzo ran a spanking 16.20 minutes to account for the determined chasers, Jessica Boan and Nathan Stoate, while Armani Scollary and Chanel Scollary made it a family double by fighting out the finish of the Sub Juniors race.
By Keith Lofthouse