The establishment of the NSW Regional Distance Running Championship has already bore fruit for Orange’s Colour City Running Festival, this year’s Athlete’s Foot Half Marathon has welcomed its biggest ever field.
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There’ll be 300 runners contesting the 21.1km event but all eyes will be on just two of them – reigning champions Harry Summers and Jane Fardell.
Sydney’s Summers, an Australian Commonwealth Games representative, returns to Orange after claiming last year’s title with an outrageous time of one hour, seven minutes and 45 seconds while Dubbo’s Fardell is gunning for her sixth straight crown.
The former happens to be coming off a dominant showing at Sydney’s City2Surf, which he won in 42 minutes flat. He’s so good Olympic marathon champion Steve Moneghetti once described him as a "shining light" of distance running.
“Harry and Jane will certainly be the two favourites for the men and women (respectively),” Colour City Running Festival coordinator Stewart Vidler predicted.
“Jane has been dominant in this race for a long time at Orange while we’re very pleased to welcome Harry back after he won the event last year.
“They’ll take some beating, that’s for sure.”
If the pair wins as expected they’ll claim maximum points in the opening leg of the Regional Distance Running Championship, which continues through the Carcoar Cup, Bathurst Half-Marathon, Mudgee Running Festival and Dubbo Stampede.
With almost $10,000 in prizes on offer, Vidler said he’d be surprised if the likes of Summers and Fardell didn’t compete at all the races.
“There’s a lot of excitement around the regional championship, we’ve already seen that with the numbers of entries we’ve had in the half marathon,” Vidler said.
“We’re all very excited for it here and to see what happens overall, the entries for the Bathurst leg are open now too.
“We’ve got some Orange runners who will want to go and take some points from them.”
The Athlete’s Foot Half Marathon kicks off at 6.45am on Sunday morning.
The Pete’s Car Wash 2km Dash starts at 4pm on Saturday at Gosling Creek, the rest of the events are on Sunday at the Bloomfield Hospital precinct.
- START TIMES
- Saturday:
- Pete’s Car Wash 2km Dash – 4pm
- Sunday:
- JP Hotel Brokers Marathon – 6.30am
- Athlete’s Foot Half Marathon – 6.45am
- Westfund 10km Walk/Run – 9.30am
- McDonald’s 5km Sports Challenge – 10.30am
- Southern Cross Austereo 5km Schools Challenge – 10.30am
- John Davis Motors 5km Business Challenge – 10.30am
- Hotel Canobolas 5km Walk/Run – 10.30am