Athletics and Cycling Masterton (ACM) made a decent impact at the annual Dorne Cup cross-country meet held at Trentham last Saturday.
They finished second in the men's 50yrs team event and Graeme Butcher and Tony Price were second and fourth respectively in the battle for individual honours in thatage group.
All nine ACM members contested the meet with the first of them being Jane Flowerday in the 6km vet women's grade. She finished midfield after a gutsy performance.
Senior men and veteran men were in the last race of the day, run over two laps of the 4km course.
Masterton's Ben Winder was in the open grade and, after a week off training with flu symptoms, he took it easy early on but finished strongly to end up 11th, four places ahead of where he finished the previous year. His time was 27min 34s.
Ray Haste was in the men's 40yrs grade and he showed the benefits of a recent training regime by recording a time of 38.31, bettering last year's time by more than one minute. He was 47th, while one place further back was Conrad McCaffrey who clocked 38.35.
There were five ACM athletes in the men's 50yrs grade, including Lloyd Millar who could have started in the 60yrs event over 6km but decided on the longer race so Masterton could be eligible for a team's prize.
The best placed of the Masterton team was Graeme Butcher who was second with a time of 30.37. Having not long returned from completing over 200km in the world 24 hour championships, it was a bold effort. Tony Price was fourth in exactly the same time he recorded when third last year of 31.24. Malcolm MacDonald continued his improved form by placing 18th, just three places ahead of Millar who beat his 2012 time by 22s clocking 36.02.
Barrie Joslin came into the race with a heel injury, caused by a near road accident while on a training run earlier in the week and, despite the pain of running in spikes, he placed a respectable 38th in 34.52.
