ATHLETICS
TRARALGON HARRIERS
By BARRY HIGGINS
MANY Harriers recently took part in celebrating a significant running event, while others further afield created their own piece of sporting history.
Saturday, October 3 saw the Traralgon parkrun tribe, as well as the worldwide parkrun community, celebrate parkrun’s 22nd birthday. With the usual light-heartedness, with the 22nd anniversary, as in two-two, the frivolous theme was to wear a Tu-Tu. Coincidentally, about 22 Harriers, a regular core of the local parkrun, took part.
Neighbourhood parkruns at Churchill, Newborough, Mirboo North and further afield in many towns across Gippsland and beyond all marked the occasion. Sadly the Sale parkrun was flooded out by the deluge of rain.
Parkrun director on the day, John DiCiero, said, “What started 22 years ago has grown into an incredible worldwide community, and here in Traralgon we’ve created a pretty amazing chapter of that story ourselves”.
“Traralgon parkrun began in 2015, and since then it has had over 6000 participants, with more than 67,000 individual parkruns completed, for a total of 337,305 kilometres run or walked (along the Traralgon Creek northern pathway).
“Over that time we have been supported on the day – for timekeeping, results, etc – by over 600 different volunteers.
“Those numbers represent thousands of Saturday mornings, friendships, milestones, personal bests, first parkruns, celebrations and people giving their time to make our community what it is. And the day was Event #550, another little piece of Traralgon parkrun history.”
Harriers take part in their 8am hometown parkrun every week, thanks to their training discipline or a loud alarm clock.
Many have reached double and triple figures – up to 200, 300, 400 or more.
The standalone legend is senior Harrier Errol Poole.
Across more than 14 years, he has completed 591 parkruns, starting at Mount Barker in Adelaide before Traralgon had begun.
Errol has completed at least one parkrun at more than 370 locations across Australia, and has been a volunteer more than 100 times. Not to mention his countless “Freedom parkruns” and “(Not) parkruns” over many years – and a number of major city marathons. And now in the 60-64 age group, he is still running sub-24 minute 5km times.
Not remarkable Errol – amazing!
And further north, Kylie Murray recently created another piece of distance running history.
She again trounced the endurance running field, this time in the Port Stephens Trail Run in NSW.
Kylie was the first woman to finish and outright third in the field behind the men’s winner and runner-up.
The 57 kilometre event around the Fingal Bay Foreshore was an unusual two stage race. The two-day ultra saw runners completing 25km on the Saturday and 32km the next day, with places judged by each person’s total time.
The course was demanding, with bushland trails, beach running and short sections of bitumen surfaces – and many steep climbs and descents.
Kylie said she enjoyed the experience.
“Two days of trail running through the Tomaree National Park, along pristine beaches, samurai sand dunes and some sweet single trails. It is such a beautiful place, an hour north of Newcastle,” she said.
LAST Thursday (October 8) saw the start of the Harriers’ summer season.
President Giuseppe Marino said, “While it might not exactly feel like summer weather yet, our Thursday night runs are set to heat up, as we swap the footpaths and roads for trails and hills”.
The run/walk from the Lutheran Church at the top of Kay Street westward along the Old Melbourne Road bike/walking track to Airport Rd and return had a few steep uphill pinches in both directions.
Times were relaxed as many were taking it easy before the challenge of Sunday’s Melbourne Marathon.
The quickest women finishers were Karen Graham, Courtney Ellis and the Marieka Reilly-Desley Gray duo who crossed the line together.
Fastest men were Dempsey Podmore in a sub 19 minutes finish, followed by Sav Mavrofridis and Hayden Matthews, both with sub-20 times.
This Thursday’s (October 15) event is the course around Lake Hyland in Churchill.
Results
Traralgon-Morwell path (5km): Dempsey Podmore 18:45, Sav Mavrofridis 19:30, Hayden Matthews 19:37, Nelson Archibald 19:57, Jay McGown 20:55, Adrian Sutcliffe 21:41, Trent Kooyman 22:55, Kerry Barker 23:04, Ash Crawford 23:15, Geoffrey Francis 23:21, Chris Van Unen 23:35, Shane Gavin 23:46, Ron Verschuur 24:03, Errol Poole 24:03, Karen Graham 24:10, Luke Yeates 24:20, Courtney Ellis 24:20, Stephen Renehan 24:24, Gary Fox 24:46, Andrew Matthews 24:50, Peter Sanders 25:41, Clinton Jolly 25:48, Belkey Podmore 26:22, Stephen Mcleod 27:00, Mark Lansdown 27:02, Marieka Reilly 27:57, Desley Gray 27:57, Molly Irvine 28:20, Ben Wilkinson 28:50, Giuseppe Marino 29:09, Catherine Leonard 29:14, Dave Mann 29:14, Maddy Wood 29:14, Drew Sedgwick 29:17, Ashley Marsh 29:19, Phillip Mayer 30:02, Charlotte Barr 30:05, David Barr 30:10, Matthew Frescura 30:13, Ree Graham 31:12, Jason Irvine 31:37, Tracey Matheson 31:48, Toby Grzmil 32:45, Megan Kenny 33:28, Bjorn Luxmann 33:38, Kaye Livingstone 33:56, David Matheson 33:58, Lauren Peter 34:04, Orannah Brightman 37:05, Samantha McGown 39:11, Lynda Jones 39:20, Rebecca Darby 41:04, Ann Bomers 41:11, Barry Higgins 41:19, Darren Fielden 45:00, Michelle Colwell 48:32, Kathy Quinn 48:32, Peter Grixti 51:00, Nick Hodson 56:10, Kylee Earl 56:10, McKenna Smith NTR, Jason Odlum NTR, Natalie Blythman NTR, Mandy Ellis NTR.
