Travis Haslam’s decision to use a family trip to the central west as a chance to make his maiden appearance at the Orange Running Festival turned out to be a masterstroke from the Canberra runner, he claimed a win in the JP Hotel Brokers Marathon.
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He blitzed his best 42.2km time in doing so too, despite Sunday morning being the first time he’d set foot on the course.
“I beat my best by about a minute-and-a-half, so I’m really happy with that,” Haslam smiled.
“I haven’t run the course before (Sunday) so to get the win on my first time here, I’m very happy with that.
“I’ve got family out this way, my wife’s family is in Cowra so I tied the race in with a bit of a family trip down this way and it all worked out pretty well.”
Haslam clocked two hours, 39 minutes and 10 seconds on Sunday to win, beating reigning champion Barry Keem (2.40.35) by just over a minute.
Philip Balnave (2.58.13) was another 18 minutes or so further back in third.
The two had a lengthy battle through the race, Haslam ended up overtaking Keem about seven kilometres from the finish and never giving the lead up.
“I was tracking him for most of the race, he was out there a fair bit but he came back to me slowly,” Haslam explained.
“It was nice to get past him around seven kilometres out and be able to hold him off too.”
Haslam lauded the marathon course and openly admitted he wasn’t expecting to run such a good time, or win for that matter.
“It’s a good course, there’s a couple of tough patches there on the gravel where you can lose a bit of rhythm there but it was nice out there and there was a bit of a tailwind through the back half of the course and from what I understand that’s not normally the wind for the course, so I was pretty happy about that,” he said.
“When I saw the course, I drove over some of it yesterday, I wasn’t expecting to run that kind of time but I was more than willing to give it a real crack.
“I worked pretty hard leading in and I felt like I was in good form.”
Haslam said he’d love to return to the colour city to defend his title in 2018, but unfortunately admitted he can’t commit yet.
“I’m not sure, whether I’m here next year will really depend on family commitments,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few marathons left in me though.”
Rachel Glasson won the women’s section of the marathon, crossing the finish line in 2.59.04 to win from Clare Palmer (3.01.07) and Heidi Rickard (3.18.38).