Athletics: First woman beat first man

Mel Aitken on her way to winning the Head for the Hill peninsula race on Saturday. Photo by...
Mel Aitken on her way to winning the Head for the Hill peninsula race on Saturday. Photo by Robert van Royen.
Dunedin runner Mel Aitken just keeps on winning.

The 38-year-old dominated the second running of the 18km Head for the Hill peninsula race in Dunedin on Saturday, crossing the line in 1hr 28 min 7sec.

She beat second-placed Gretchen Brownstein by more than half an hour, and also beat men's winner Steve Tripp.

Coming less than two weeks after she won the Dunedin Marathon women's title, the win continued her good build-up to the national marathon championships in Auckland in November.

In wet and foggy conditions, Aitken cleared out early and was never threatened as she powered on to take the overall win.

Tripp was second across the line and won the men's race in 1hr 34min 5sec, not far ahead of second-placed Mark Hodgkinson, who finished in 1hr 36min 57sec. The Braidwood Bolt run and Highcliff Hustle walk, which are usually 13km, were a kilometre longer than usual due to a change in location for the start.

Stephen Andrews won the men's 14km race in 1hr 15min 49sec, 2min 23sec ahead of runner-up Steve Aitken.

Karen Hodgkinson won the women's 14km race in 1hr 27min 12sec, and Roger Leslie (1hr 32min 12sec) and Julie Edmunds (1hr 43min 8sec) won the 14km men's and women's walk respectively.

Twenty-five people competed in this year's event, which was held earlier than last year's inaugural event, to avoid clashing with the Queenstown Marathon.

All the races finished at the Ocean Grove sports field.

The 18km run started at Broad Bay and the 14km run and walk started at the Highcliff Rd and Seal Point Rd junction.

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