Winners share experience of club's virtual race

Wade was the male winner of the club's inaugural virtual time trial in a speedy 21.33 minutes.

Participants had a week to complete the six-kilometre course at Warrnambool foreshore.

The deadline was 4pm on Saturday.

They had to run the course solo, due to social distancing, and log their time in a phone application before sending it to the club.

After umming and ahing about braving Saturday's wet weather, Wade put foot to pavement at 3.30pm.

"I thought I better run and get this uploaded," he said.

The Warrnambool-based runner said doing things up against deadline was not usually his style.

"Not generally, but I had been a bit lazy during the week," he said.

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His first four kms went smoothly before he was hit by a hailstorm and a howling headwind.

"So the last two kilometres were tough," he said.

"I was drenched, it was quite funny actually."

Besides the inclement weather, Wade found it harder than other WAC runs because he wasn't running among others.

"It's hard to run fast by yourself without people around you but it's not impossible," he said.

The 48-year-old, who won his first WAC event about a decade ago, said he was thrilled the club was pursuing virtual races.

"It's a great way to keep all the members involved and interested and to give them a bit of motivation to keep training," he said.

"Nearly 50 people did it which was fantastic."

David Hughson (22.49) was the second fastest male and Carl McMeel (23.43) was third.

Warrnambool's Rachel Ayres (23.07) was the quickest female leading Emily Jansz (25.07) and Grace Sousa (27.11).

Ayres has mixed feelings about the virtual concept.

"It's a hard one to do because you're not racing (other people), you're racing yourself more than anything else," she said.

The talented runner misses the competitive and social side of running among others.

But she said the upside of the virtual event was it gave runners a chance to see where they were at.

She enjoys the fact participants can complete the course numerous times and submit their fastest entry. She ran the 6km course twice.

Ayres was supposed to run the Geelong Half Marathon over the weekend but that has been postponed.

Meanwhile, she's not training for it right now but she does have one big goal.

"When parkrun starts up again, I want to break the (female) Warrnambool record," she said.

Lucia Philipp holds it with a slick 18.13 minutes.

WAC's next event is a virtual 6km handicap race. Handicaps will be based on previous events this season.

Just like the time trial, members will complete a course on their own, log their time and send it to the club. Times are due Sunday April 19.

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