BLUE Mountains runner Brendan Davies continues to dominate the Bathurst Half Marathon, claiming his fourth crown in the event on Sunday at Ashwood Park.

Davies recorded his second-fastest time in the event, taking one hour, 14.27 minutes to complete the 21.1 kilometre course.

His best mark remains the 1:12.53 he posted in his first win in 2013.

This time around he was pushed harder than ever before by Gary Mullins, a team-mate of Davies on the Australian 100km squad.

“As always, all I got to watch was Brendan’s backside,” Mullins quipped after the race.

He had done well to go as close as he did to the reigning champion, finishing 38 seconds behind.

Davies now sits two wins behind the mark set by Rod Draper.

“I’m pretty happy to win again, I’m in heavy training at the moment and have the Comrades Ultra 90 kilometre race coming up in South Africa at the end of this month, it is basically the biggest ultra marathon in the world,” the winner said.

“I’ve been doing 180 kilometres a week and this run today actually brings me up to that amount for the week, so the legs were pretty heavy at a few points out there, not that I wasn’t racing hard – I was – but I didn’t feel all that fresh.

“Gary is a good runner, I know he has the endurance to really finish the race well because of the distances he can run, so every time when I made a turn I could see him and he was getting a bit closer.

“I was ready for him to get pretty close because he’s such a good finisher. It was a good, hard race.”

As well as his own running, Davies spends much of his time helping others via his Up Coaching school based in the Blue Mountains. 

While he has had some of his runners compete alongside him before, never have they had the sort of presence they did on Sunday.

An entire bus load of Up runners made the trip, helping to boost the overall numbers of participants over 300 for the half marathon and 10km events combined.

“This is the last hit-out for a lot of them before a big race they’ve got coming up. They’ve been doing a lot of trail running so this is a chance for them to do some road training,” Davies said.

“I love coming out here, I won the 10 kilometre event about five or six years ago and I’ve got four of the halves now. I’m going to keep coming back here until I’m 100 and I’m coming last.”

Of the local runners, Nick Zawadski was the first Bathurst athlete to cross the line. He finished in 1:20.54, displacing Davies’ training partner Wes Gibson from the mantle he has occupied in recent years as the fastest home city runner.