Plenty of records and personal best times broken at Albany Athletics Club championships

Despite a ferocious storm and heavy rain during the week, conditions for Albany Athletics Club championships turned out to be quite good for running on the testing hilly course of Mt Clarence on Sunday.

Two records were broken and some personal best times set in the 2km, 4km and 6km races, which made this meet a highlight of the season and set a great standard for next year.

Junior runnerMitch Eley started the trend by beating the club best-performance mark in the 2km by two seconds.

Another outstanding junior, Caleb Benson, followed that trend when he smashed the 4km 20-minute barrier by less than one second to break the club best-performance mark for the second time in a fortnight with yet another blistering run.

In the 2km race, the first female across the line was promising young runner Elaina Patterson.

Sprinter turned distance runner Zoe Bascombe showed the benefit of her cross country season by taking out first female honours for the 4km.

Senior runner John Toomey was unchallenged to take out the 6km race and Jill Bascombewas the first female title winner.

In the 2km race, Harrison McWhirter, Callum Benson and Patrick McWhirter produced great efforts and all continued their consistent improvement with impressive personal bests and Anna and Adam Thomson had spectacular improvements of nearly two minutes for their personal bests.

The spotlight was on Caleb Bensonfor his astonishing run in the 4km but Rory Wolfe ran very powerfully in his Mt Clarence debut this year.

No doubt he was encouraged by veteran runner Carl Heslop, who led in a determined PG Van Wyk, who also lowered his personal best and came so close to cracking the elusive 23-minute barrier.

The Albany Athletics Club Mt Clarence run traditionally starts at the Avenue of Remembrance trees dedicated to our fallen.

Club president Jasmine Heslop this year invited everyone to pause for a minute of silence and reflect on the sacrifice of Australia’ servicemen and women.

The club paid tribute to Ronald Bell, who they believed was the first Albany soldier to die in the Vietnam War.

His tree, at the very start of the run, was draped with an Australian flag for the occasion.

The cross country season finishes on Sunday with the traditional end-of-season run held on John and Cathy Bocian’s farm.