elements along North Shore, Jay Donawa stayed ahead of both them to defend his local men's title in Saturday's 10K.

Butterfield got away from Wright before the finish to add a second place to his mile victory the night before while Maria Conroy Haydon took the local women's title ahead of Lynn Patchett and defending champion Karen Adams.

Donawa, the 1997 local winner in 32:30 again broke into the top 10 as he led home the local group in 33:04. Considering the conditions, especially along North Shore where a strong headwind greeted the runners, Donawa was pleased with his performance.

"Basically I just went out and did my own thing,'' said Donawa, whose showdown with Kavin Smith never materialised as Smith did not compete.

"Today, this is the worst weather in terms of the wind so it makes it very difficult but you just have to go out there and put in an effort.

"Whatever your time you just subtract a minute or so because there is no way that the effort I put in and the time I got out of it correlate. I'm very happy with the effort I put forth.'' Donawa was always leading Butterfield and Wright and was never seriously threatened by any other local.

"I was pretty much running by myself until about Flatts,'' explained Donawa.

"I had two guys in front of me and I was slowly trying to reel them in but as soon as we got into Flatts it was a another race.

"The wind stood me up, and I'm light anyway, but I just worked and worked and eventually I caught them by Clayhouse. One of them, Brad Hudson, is a very good marathon runner who I raced against in college.'' Donawa's triumph denied Butterfield a win that would have enabled him to join his parents, Jim and Debbie, as winners of this event. Jim won among the local men in the second event in 1979 while Debbie took the local women's title in 1980 and again in 1989. Both were out there again yesterday.

"I'm happy, I can't ask for anymore, I had two personal bests, last night and today,'' said the young Butterfield who was second in 34:53 after breaking away from Wright on Palmetto Hill.

"I had a great race, I just came out here to have fun. When I started to run with Tracy it wasn't as lonely and me and Tracy were working together from about the three to five mile mark.

Wright has next month's CAC Cross Country Championships to look forward to and for that reason he decided to miss yesterday's half-marathon. A fall out of a tree at work on Tuesday left him with some back pains which affected his running on Saturday.

"Today I think I aggravated it some more,'' explained Wright. The windy conditions along North Shore were also a factor for the leading local women.

"I'm really pleased with my win today, I had no idea I was capable of winning,'' said Conroy-Haydon who was happy with her time of 39:42, fifth overall.

"Considering the training I have done I'm quite pleased with it. I was hoping to do 40 minutes.

"I thought Karen, Lynn and Anna (Eatherley) were going to be quite strong. It was tough along North Shore but I'm happy with my run. I overtook Lynn on Middle Road and I knew she was behind me but I had no idea how far.'' Patchett was satisfied with her run (40:02) which earned her second local female.

"It was just a matter of reserving something for North Shore Road and that's what I managed to do,'' she said.

"Time was just not a factor today, I didn't think about the time, I just wanted to see what my splits were and try to maintain within 10 to 15 seconds of those marks. I didn't know what North Shore had in store.'' Adams could not follow up her success in the mile the night before as she placed behind Conroy-Haydon and Patchett in 40:40.

"My time was not great but I expected that would be the area I would do today,'' said Adams. "I had a decent race last night (Friday) but my legs were a little bit tight. Also my hip was bothering me through the night so I got very little sleep.

"I wasn't competing with anyone because I knew I couldn't compete today.'' LEADING LADIES -- Maria Conroy Haydon (left) was first among the local women while Kenya's Salina Chirchir took overall female honours.