It’s the toughest high school race in town, and it’s Lambrick Park secondary students only.
The King and Queen of the Hill is 1.5 kilometres up the unforgiving climb that is Churchill Road on Pkols (Mount Douglas).
“There’s no breaks, when you hit the half way point, it gets really hard,” said Grade 11 student Cam Blank, who won it for the second straight year on Friday.
Blank, a soccer and ball hockey player, paced himself to the win and didn’t take the lead until after the halfway mark. He’s the first male to win the award in back-to-back years since Stewart Keenan in 2007-2008.
His time of seven minutes and 55 seconds put him clear ahead of the second place finisher, but still one minute back of the course record. Teagan Hunt, a Grade 9 student, took the Queen title in her Queen of the Hill debut with a time of 9:17.
“I didn’t know how long it was going to be so I had to guess at the beginning, I had to slow down because I started too fast,” Hunt said.
Athletics teacher Tom Turnbull started the race to discover track and field athletes in 1995.
“We’ve found a few athletes because of it,” he said.
King of the Hill results:
1. Cameron Blank (7:55)
2. Ricardo Moch (8:28)
3. Conor Croucher (8:34)
4. Connor Turnbull (8:43)
5. Cooper Austin (9:00)
Queen of the Hill results:
1. Teagan Hunt (9:17)
2. Zoe Kinakin (11:33)
3. Joyce Wang (12:15)
4. Sarah Pike (13:03)
5. Miss M. Johnston (14:27)
*Over 100 students and staff participated.
See our pre-race interview with Cam Blank.
reporter@saanichnews.com
