Race #62

The two winners of the first race of this summer’s Eta Ripples Stroke & Stride Series repeated their performances in the second round on November 26.  Heidi Alexander won the women’s race again and Nathan Richmond again pipped current Series Champion Brent Foster at the post to take the men’s lead.

After another wind swept 750 metre swim, the women’s field was lead from the water by Nicola Wills in just under nine minutes.  A bunch including Marisa Pentecost, Debbie Tanner, Nicola de Lautour, Naomi Calder and Heidi Alexander hotly pursued Nicola into the transition.  A further minute back was the next bunch, which included Sue Clark and Fiona Docherty.

Heidi Alexander backed up her great swim with a sizzling 4 kilometre run split to comfortably head home the field in 24 minutes 52 seconds.  Heidi was pleased to see all her swim training was paying off as she felt she had improved markedly from last summer.  A good swim, she said, put her in a better position to beat her main opponent, last season’s Series Champion, Debbie Tanner.

Rising talent Nicola de Lautour tried to stay with Heidi during the run and was rewarded with a fine second placing.  Fiona Docherty and Sue Clark had their own battle out on the run course with Fiona grabbing third ahead of Sue.  Debbie Tanner turned in another typically uncompromising performance to round out the top five.

No surprise to see Brent Foster leading the men’s field from the water and no surprise to see his closest pursuer was again Nathan Richmond just six seconds back.  Then followed a continuous stream of swimmers including Robbie Baff, Haydn Woolley, Will Green, Vaughan Skiffington, Brendon Downey and Malcolm McGregor.

For the second race in a row the runners had to contend with strong, blustery wind conditions and again the race was decided during the run with Nathan and Brent swapping positions for Nathan to take first place by just five seconds.  No one could match it with these two on the run but Brendon Downey was the best of the rest with an excellent third placing ahead of Vaughan Skiffington and Haydn Woolley.