NEW MUM TAKES FIFTH STRAIGHT GOLD

City Of Perth's Alison O'Toole yesterday continued her amazing dominance in the Open Female two-kilometre beach run by taking out her fifth straight title.

But it was no ordinary victory.

Just three weeks ago, O'Toole was giving birth to her first child, Tighe.

So while Tighe was with his father and wondering what had happened to his 7.30am feed,  Mum stood on the start line to defend the title she has held since the race was introduced in 2005.

O'Toole won the event ahead of Paige Cooper (North Burleigh, QLD) who took home the silver and Bernadette Chisolm (Clovelly, NSW) who came across the line in third.

She went in to the race holding few expectations.

"I wasn't at all confident, I had no expectations coming in and I didn't know how I would go," she said.

"I was able to exercise during my pregnancy, but when the baby came there wasn't much time for training which affected my speed. I wanted to go easy and see how I went, but I found it quite easy in the end, the sand was quite hard."

And when asked how life had changed since becoming a mother O'Toole joked: "This was my outing for the day as I've been home looking after the baby, so it was good to get out of the house."

In the open men's 2km beach run it was fourth time lucky for Portsea's David Rowell, who took the gold from Andrew Mosel (City of Perth, WA) in second, and Boyd Conrick (Redhead, NSW) who finished with the bronze. Rowell has finished seventh, third and second in his three previous starts in the event.

"It's unreal, this is my fourth crack at it and it's been my holy grail for the past four years," he said.

"Over the last 200 metres I was in pain and I saw Andrew Mosel from City of Perth coming up right behind me, but I just put my head down and got there."

"I actually nearly missed the race because I thought it was the last race so I barely had time to warm up and only just made it to the starting line in time."

The men's under-19 beach run went to Troy Ham (Swansea Belmont, NSW) from Sean Noone (Northcliffe, Qld) and Ivan De Rooster (Trigg Island) while the under-19 women's winner was Stephanie Ballantine (West Beach, SA), who beat Elouera (NSW) sisters Jenny and Kate Conder.

In the under-17s Kieren Perkins (Met Caloundra, Qld) won the men's and Bree Jones (Warilla Barrack Point, NSW) the women's, while in the under-15s Mickey Mason (Port Elliott, SA) won the men's and Jordan Mercer (Mooloolaba, Qld), the daughter of former Ironman champion Darren Mercer, won the women's.