The gust that raced down St Kilda Rd seemed to flank the APSOC runners during their warm up for the 74th running of the Frank Dyson relays around the Tan. With the sun out however, this wind did little to dour the spirits of the SKAAC contingent as teams began to gather into place. There’s a certain sense of excitement that comes from the alignment of some of SKAAC’s finest cross country runners into one six-man relay team, and as Peter Bol and Jack Holden completed their stretches, one could sense the scale of the display that was to come.
This was backed up by a blistering first two legs, 11:35 and 11:26 being the respective times, that gave the SKAAC Division 1 team a morale-boosting lead. The ensuing dogfight for this lead was admirably fought out with Chris Hibbert, Xavier Chapman and Tristan Mioni all taking the battle to the constant charges from the opposition. Special mention must go to Steve Fabris who pulled out a monumental sixth-leg effort right from the end of Anderson St hill to the finish line to hold SKAAC’s placing above Old Hailebury and, perhaps more importantly, Old Xavier. Finishing in 2nd place with an overall time of 74:24, that’s an average time of 12:24 for the 3.8km course, this was a superbly powerful performance.
The SKAAC women’s team held their own with a consistent pace throughout each of the four legs, Chloe Cornwell being the highlight performance, with John and Gabriel Cornwell supplementing the two division 2 SKAAC men’s teams all with commendable times. The junior SKAAC runners made a vital contribution to the overall performance of these teams with Joel Imbriano and Jett-Paris Bedelis both upholding the speed that allowed both these teams to take some scalps.
A common theme that seemed to run through each SKAAC runner’s recount of their leg of the relay was the unrelenting wind in the build up to the dreaded Anderson St hill. Especially in the latter, more spaced out stages of the event did this factor remind us why a course even as familiar as the Tan can be hard to read. It is a testament to the determination of the four SKAAC teams that they were able to endure the challenges of this time-honoured course against time-honoured opposition with tenacity and class.
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