The Weekend Review – Happy Birthday to the Queen.

It’s a public holiday on Monday to celebrate a certain monarch’s special day, but that has nothing to do with the title of this review. Happy Birthday to one of the RunAsOne originals Anna Kovac! Anna was joined by a large group of her team mates at Pakapakanthi today to celebrate! Elsewhere, Coach Riley had a great run in Tasmania which provided an added topic of conversation on the group long run, while other conversation was dominated by a review of all things cross country running after round 3 of the Athletics SA winter season took place yesterday. Here’s another weekend in review for RunAsOne!

RunAsOne had another strong day of representation at the Athletics SA cross country relay event on Saturday. It was round 3 of the winter premiership season, and each runner was set to earn more valuable points for their clubs. The structure of the day saw teams of 3 each cover 6km cross country relay legs, with double points on offer! For Flinders Athletics Club, RunAsOne regular Tom Lancaster found himself in the prestigious A team this week. Tom played the role of anchor to help his team claim second place on the day. The Flinders C team was all RunAsOne, with Luke Mitchell starting off, Oscar taking over from him, and Josh Young bringing the team home. All three gained more valuable cross country experience, and certainly held their own against more experienced opposition. Luke’s time of 20:44 was the 5th fastest for Flinders on the day, and stakes his claim for a B team selection in the next round. Behind them, Matt Dimonte fought on well to help the D team claim more valuable points for Flinders, and Matty Warner anchored the Flinders O/35 team to a strong second place finish! For other clubs, Issy Tucker continued her marathon preparations for the Gold Coast Marathon with a strong run for Hills. Similarly, Tony Jarrett played a supporting role for his Adelaide Harriers club mates, and Paul Sideris competed well in the green and grey of the Hills Districts club!

On Sunday morning, the stage was set for one of the more popular RunAsOne events so far: Anna’s 30kms for 30 years! Big numbers fought some frosty conditions early to accompany Anna for parts or all of her journey. It was quite a sight to see as a train of RunAsOne runners covered laps of Pakapakanthi, with Anna setting the pace for her longest run ever! Afterwards, the team joined Anna’s family for a coffee and some cake at the same staircase Anna has been meeting her team mates at every Tuesday and Friday since the very early days of RunAsOne! While we sipped our hot coffees, and enjoyed our well earned treats, we were prompted by another topic of conversation which had made it’s way to us from Launceston in Tasmania. Coach Riley Cocks had just broken the state half marathon record to finish second at the Launceston Running Festival. Having previously just missed the mark of 63:29 in Japan, Riley was confident that his recent training and form would be enough to secure the record this time. His official finish time of 62:54 shaved over half a minute off the record, and will certainly be a difficult mark to better! This will be the last race hit out for Riley before he tackles his first marathon on the Gold Coast in 3 weeks. We can’t wait to see what he can achieve over double the distance!

Next up, the team has a time trial over 5km which is an exciting opportunity to put our recent training to the test, and set a new benchmark to tackle for the remainder of winter. Round 4 of the Athletics SA winter season also takes place at Pakapakanthi a week after the trial, and doubles as the State road championship over 10km for open, junior, and veteran runners. We hope to have a strong representation at the road champs, before a large group heads to the Gold Coast for some sun, and the opportunity to smash some PBs on a fast 10km, half marathon, and marathon course! Stay tuned on the socials to keep up with those results!