Clouds part for Canberra running festival
Despite torrential rain pouring throughout the night, thousands gathered early on Saturday morning for the annual Canberra Times Australian Running Festival.
The clouds parted and brilliant sunshine beamed down on a somewhat soggy running festival as runners began outside Old Parliament House and wound around a circuit taking in some of Australia's most iconic buildings.
Saturday morning featured the 10 kilometre and 5 kilometre events, before the half-marathon, marathon and ultra-marathon for the particularly enthusiastic on Sunday.
The 10 kilometre women's event was won by Leanne Pompeani in a time of 36.09 minutes and Hugh Williams took the honours in the men's event in a time of 30.47 minutes.
Ms Pompeani, a born and bred Canberran, will be heading to the United States in May to do some altitude training before competing in Portland.
She competes in the Canberra event most years but this is her first win. Running will continue to be her main focus as she works to eventually represent Australia and potentially make the jump to marathons, but the 10 kilometre distance remains her favourite.
The win took on extra significance for Mr Williams, who moved to Canberra three years ago to train under legendary Australian running coach Dick Telford.
Mr Williams fractured his back in 2016 and the win today represented "a year of building back up to this point".
He also said it was always special to "have a run on home turf".
But while the event attracted some of Canberra's best runners, there were plenty of people just out for some exercise and to do a personal best.
ANU law students Ellie Dowling and Nicola Mildren who regularly run together said the event provided great motivation to keep running when the stresses of university life built up.
They said running was a great form of stress relief and only occassionally procrastination.
While Ms Mildren competed in the half-marathon last year, she had a slightly different experience in this year's shorter event.
"I thought I was going to vomit at 8 kilometres," she said.
The event is all for charity and it was announced during the presentations it had so far raised $134,000 with the ultimate goal $200,000.
Aside from the run there was plenty to entertain the kids such as jumping castles and activity areas, food and drink outlets and a dedicated massage service for those a little sore after the effort.
The Canberra Times Australian Running Festival continues on Sunday.