The NSW Short Course Cross Country Championships was the perfect test day for the course that will be used for February's international event, and many Central West runners took the opportunity to

It was an historic occasion for the championships, as the state titles headed west of the Blue Mountains for the first time in its 107-year history.

The wet and muddy conditions at the Mount also gave competitors a gruelling cross country experience on what was already described as a "challenging" course.

Stephen Jackson, who is part of the organising committee for the World Championships, said the feedback from the weekend's event was encouraging.

"There were about 400 visitors, mostly up from Sydney, for the NSW Short Course Cross Country Championships, which they typical host in Sutherland, but they brought it here to do it as a test event for the World Cross Country next year," he said.

"The general consensus was that it was a tough course and it was quite muddy and slippery, which is what you need for cross country.

"All the participants were quite enamoured with it. There was a bit of snow and hail mid-morning, so there's going to be quite a bit of contrast with the February weather for the international event."

Sunday's event was also an opportunity for Jackson to help organisers find ways to integrate the Bathurst community into the upcoming World Athletics Cross Country Championships.

"It all went well. They very much called on Jenn [Arnold] and I with our local parkrun experience to try and understand the local environment and find out what they were missing out on by not including a lot of locals in the organising committee," Jackson said.

"They recognise that running an event like this in regional NSW is very different from running it in a metro environment. They like the course and they like the direction things are going.

"There was a lot of positive input from Mark Rayner and those at the track because of all the infrastructure that they have there, which lends itself well to an international event coming to Bathurst."

Bathurst's Miller Rivett finished fourth in the boys' under 17s 4.5km event with a time of 17:30 and Aaron Houston was ninth in the 18-19 years 4.5km race with a 17:02.

The highlight of the weekend's state championships was the open women's 6km event, where Randwick Botany's Holly Campbell and South Africa's Aynslee Van Graan engaged in a great battle.

Campbell won the duel in a time of 22 minutes and 34 seconds, with Van Graan close behind in 23:08.

Western Australian Ethan Wyatt-Smith beat home another Randwick Botany athlete, Drew Fryer, in times of 20:14 and 20:23 respectively.

Orange's Mitch Williamson (24:17) was the victor of the 6km fun run, and was followed by a host of Bathurst competitors: James Pucci (25:01), Nick Zawadski (25:27) and Matt Ferguson (25:29).

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