Blue Mountains runners set the podium alight at the Australian Running Festival in Canberra on April 14-15.
Marnie Ponton from Glenbrook pushed against the strong wind to take out the women’s event of the half marathon in 1 hour 18 minutes 10 seconds.
For the first 12km she tucked in behind a bunch of guys which helped protect her from the wind.
“I was trying to hold on to the guys; if they dropped me I would have run backwards,” she said.
In the marathon, Leigha Wills from Winmalee was second female, in 3:08:23.
And, having his final fast hit out before he takes on Ultra-Trail Mt Fuji this week, Woodford’s Brendan Davies was second in the 50km ultra marathon.
Finishing in 3:08:42, he was just three minutes behind Vlad Shatrov from Newcastle, who took back to back wins in the Six Foot Track Marathon this year.
“I was happy to stay within three minutes of Vlad, as I have been focusing primarily on trail running, training big volumes with a lot of hill training,” Davies said.
“Vlad pretty much took the lead early on and held that lead for the race. It was basically a race of three; Vlad, myself and Barry Keem. Barry has won the previous two Australian Running Fest 50km editions, so to beat him was encouraging.”
After returning from Japan Davies will be limbering up for the Ultra-Trail Australia 100km event in May.
