Monday, December 12, 2005

Colac report by Lindsay Phillips

I broke a 14-year drought last month, by running my 1st 6 day race since Campbelltown '91, when I ran 509 km. at Colac. I enjoyed the experience immensely (just to confirm my extremely questionable sanity levels), & my "Colac '06 assault" can't come soon enough!!!

The 1st highlight of the week would undoubtably be the very high levels of professionalism & friendliness of all the race officials & voluntary helpers. I can't speak highly enough of these extremely dedicated & helpful people. In saying this I'm including; Bill & Bev, Glen & Emma, Les, Phil, Pat, Helene, other food van helpers, and of course all the lap counters and IT. people. I hope they enjoyed themselves even 1/2 as much as I did. - And if they didn't, I guess I may understand that too!! (My humblest apologies to anyone I may have accidentally over-looked here.)

The 2nd highlight of the week was undoubtably the last day or so, when I was fortunate enough to witness what I believe to be one of the greatest athletic achievements of all-time. I speak of course of Yiannis breaking his own 21-year old!! 'men's 6 day track world record' by running 1036.850 km. (Having also been at Sandy Barwick's breaking of the women's 'women's 6 day track world record' in '90, and thus possibly being the only person to have witnessed both, I feel very lucky & proud to say I've been there to see both such great athletic
feats!!!)

The final highlight of the week was the total & utter medical back-up of one of my fellow competitors. I'm referring of course to the 'inimitable and irrepressible' Dr Andy Lovy. As I've already said, I'm looking forward to running this race again next year, and I am quite perturbed by the possibility that Andy may not attend the '06 race. As a result (those present at the finish ceremony will know) I've donated $100 to the race committe to 'kick-start' a fund to help subsidise Andy's air fare to the '06 race.

Any intended Colac '06 competitors (or runners from the past few years to have benefitted from Andy's extensive experience)...Could you please give this issue serious consideration & possibly donate $20 or $50 to this extremely worthy cause.

Thanks for your interest,
Regards & yours in running,
Lindsay Phillips.

1 comment:

Phil Essam said...

There was a suggestion on the CR Message board that entry fee for the race be raised to cover this! I know that the Colac Committee are looking at other options to increase the medical coverage for the race as well.