Elleker Running Festival’s race director is as “happy as a runner with a bag of potatoes” after the success of the 2026 event on Sunday where two locals claimed their respective half-marathon titles.

Local Marc See was the first competitor across the line in the returning event, while Kate Pritchett was the first female to complete the half-marathon journey.

With torrential winds and rain forecast for race day, Carl Heslop said the organisers discussed cancellation on the eve of the beloved event but held off just in case the gloomy skies stayed away — which thankfully, they did.

“This is a huge achievement for the Albany Athletics Club after combining with the Little Athletics Club,” he said.

“The club’s members have supported us, our sponsors have supported us and the community has supported us.

“The hard work for the club and community to keep this event alive in to the future starts this week, but compared to where we were 12 months ago, we can all be proud.”

While a light shower greeted runners at the start line of the flag ship half-marathon race, it was all clear skies after that, with an 89-participant field taking off from the town hall around the scenic Lake Powell course at 8.30am.

Mt Melville’s See held a convincing lead from the get-go and managed the course in a blistering time of 1hr. 13min. 22sec, more than five minutes ahead of runner-up Darcey Ovens (1:18:50) and Damien McAleese (1:18:59) in third place, who are also both Great Southern locals.

It was See’s first crack at the 21.1km track, normally competing in short distances and having only completed the event’s 10km in years prior.

“I’m similar to Peter Watson, I’m a sub-four-minute miler,” he said.

“Conditions were a bit tougher than expected, so I just saw the first lap, and then pushed at the end.

“It was nice to have a lot of 10km runners to keep you pumped in the second lap.”

The first woman across the line was Albany’s Pritchett, who returned to defend her 2024 title with a rapid pace of 1:29:53.

Though not quite as speedy as her last attempt, which came in three minutes faster, Pritchett said she was feeling “very good and very grateful” to take out the female trophy, which she also won in 2022.

“It was tough in the conditions, very windy coming across the back there, but not too bad,” she said.

“I had a few cramps in the back end, but I survived.

“It’s amazing, really, considering all the warnings we had overnight, it was questionable whether we go ahead, that it’s turned out an almost perfect day.”

Olivia Lee and Jennie Halliman followed Pritchett onto the female podium in times of 1:33:48 and 1:34:40 respectively.

Racing to the front a record-breaking 136-runner field in the 10km event was Michail Muller in 37min. 28sec., followed seconds later by Douglas Foulkes-Taylor (37:33:3) and Reece Thomas (39:24:5).

Sarah McPherson was the first woman across the line, stopping the clock at 43:50:7, with runner-up Tracey Hood coming in with 48:10:4 and Esther Scott at 52:05:0.