There’s one thing the top runners agreed on regarding Saturday’s second Ceres Juices 10k Series race in Carrot Bay: the course was tough.

 

Aside from the challenging course, Virgin Gorda’s Maxford Pipe had his hands full with visiting North Carolina’s Wake Forest High School runners Bailey Autry and his brother John, after they broke away from the field of runners early in the race.

“Honestly, out of all the 10ks I’ve run, this is the hardest one,” Mr. Pipe said, after running along Tortola’s north shore from Carrot Bay to Smugglers Cove and back in 42 minutes and 37 seconds to finish less than a minute ahead of Bailey. “There are lots of hills and they are steep and quite lengthy.”

It was Mr. Pipe’s first time running the course and his aim was to run faster than the 41:33” in the series opener, but didn’t expect the hills to be so steep.

“I’m satisfied with the time, which is good because of the difficulties. But I wanted to run a faster time than I did in the first race, which was a lot easier,” he said. “Thanks to my pace setter (Bailey). He went out on the first half, that led me to a better time.”

An 11th grader this fall, Bailey said the course was harder than the one at his home, which has more hills. However, he run faster there.

“That’s how hard this course was,” said Bailey, a 4:43-miler, who has run the 800 metres in 2:11 minutes. “Since some of it is on gravel, it’s hard to step on it and you loose your traction on it, so you had to run harder to get the same speed.”

John, who will be a ninth grader in the fall and has a best 5k time of 19:03 minutes, finished third in 45:04.”

“There weren’t too many hills, but the three we did were incredibly steep so that you almost wanted to start walking,” he said. “It took all your energy before you got to the top.”

Hanging with the leaders early in the race, Julius Farley said he tried his best, but just couldn’t hold on as he placed fourth in 46:31.”

“This course is a very tough course,” he said. “The hills are really tough. That was the hardest I’ve ever done. Even harder than the Virgin Gorda Half Marathon.”

The women’s division winner was Katrina Crumpler, who placed eighth overall in 53:51 minutes, said it’s her favourite course.

“I love the views, the different terrain, the variety and it’s really interesting,” she said. “It wasn’t really the best race for me today. I was a bit tired. I had a hard week at work and I was a bit slow, but it was nice to win it. I enjoyed running it anyway.”

Final Results

Men: 1. Maxford Pipe, 42 minutes and 37 seconds. 2. Bailey Autry, 43.12. 3. John Autry, 45:04. 4. Julius Farley, 46.31. 5. Curwin Andrews, 46:59. 6. Adrian Dale, 51:54. 7. Joseph McIvor, 53:08. 8. Russell Crumpler, 54:21. 9. Ben Mays, 54:22. 10. Adam & Alysiana De Monte, 54:51. 11. Jermain Abrams, 58:04. 12. Shane Donovan, 59:21. 13. Patrick Ormond, 1:05.25. 14. Zebalon McLean, 1:05.27. 15. Howard Moore, 1:07.32. 16. Andrew Willins, 1:10.01. 17. Jeremy Snead, 1:13.48.

Women: 1. Katrina Crumpler, 53:51. 2. Rosmond Johnson, 56:37. 3. Clare-Louise Whiley, 56:57. 4. Kay Reddy, 58:33. 5. Sarah Hayes, 59:35. 6. Anna Kinkead, 1:01.44. 7. Sally Blackmore, 1:03.33. 8. Maureen Peters, 1:06.30. 9. Jenny McIvor, 1:09.43. 10. Jo Vass, 1:09.43. 11. Ghislaine Hoogendijk, 1:13.12. 12. Clair Burke, 1:14.52.

Power Walker: 1. Sophie Bennett, 1:30:34.