State League 3 at Wattle Ridge at the weekend was favoured with glorious weather of cool temperatures and bright sunshine. Most competitors had taken advantage of the proximity to Sydney to travel on the day, with some of the Summer Series competitors try their first bush event. The NSW Junior Squad was out in force, with their friends from ACT who had been training with them in Canberra during the vacation. The event was perfectly placed for the juniors to develop their bush skills in what is known to be a challenging area of complex rock and sometimes thick vegetation. The event saw an innovative approach to the longest Hard courses, with multiple butterfly loops keeping the sense of urgency maintained throughout the race.
Many of the courses proved more than the challenge expected, however, with Long courses becoming somewhat Ultra Long due to some course length estimation errors and vegetation thicker than expected. Finish times in all classes blew out so that even course winners were coming back in around the 100 minute mark, with a significant number of runners well over that. Not all had problems however - Peter De Lissa, bush newby from the Summer Series, had a great run in the Moderate class tackling his first proper bush event in a little over 48 minutes to come second to Daniel Smith.
