Very remiss of us to overlook this very important performance by one of our elder statesmen, Bruce Cook, at the Queensland Athletics Cross Country Championships in early June. This is what you call a “quality” field with the first 8 places all well under 32 minutes for 8k or 4 minutes per k. Bruce almost broke 29 minutes, which is screaming, finishing second overall and first in his category. As if that wasn’t enough he also finished ahead of Ron Peters who is one of the most fearsome veteran athlete competitors going around in Queensland (1:12:23 for 21.1k at Gold Coast in 2009). Well done Bruce.
|
Masters Men 50+ 8000m |
|
|
Place |
Name |
Club |
Time |
|
|
1 |
Peter Reeves |
UNQ |
28.22 |
1st 55-59 |
|
2 |
Bruce Cook |
ATN |
29.03 |
1st 50-54 |
|
3 |
Ron Peters |
ASR |
29.06 |
2nd 55-59 |
|
4 |
Greg Coulter |
TES |
29.58 |
2nd 50-54 |
|
5 |
Martin McKone |
TES |
29.59 |
3rd 50-54 |
|
6 |
Con Dimauro |
QMA |
31.02 |
50-54 |
|
7 |
Phil Davies |
|
31.15 |
50-54 |
|
8 |
Jason Collie |
TES |
31.26 |
3rd 55-59 |
|
9 |
Graham Barralett |
ASR |
32.34 |
55-59 |
|
10 |
Paul Andrews |
TWH |
33.06 |
50-54 |
|
11 |
John Sheer |
TES |
34.17 |
1st 60-64 |
|
12 |
Robert Lofthouse |
ATN |
35.09 |
50-54 |
|
13 |
Paul Circosta |
ASR |
42.53 |
55-59 |
|
14 |
Michael Schultz |
ATN |
43.11 |
55-59 |
Mini Kokoda is a precursor event to the Kokoda Challenge. Over 29 kilometres it includes some of the course over which the longer event is conducted and focuses on the Numinbah area including some monster hills. Caboolture Road Runners Gold team of Francis, Sean, Peter and Geoff Williams entered the event a couple of weeks ago as a training exercise and to give those on the team who hadn’t done it a feel for the kind of terrain over which they’ll have to travel for 96 kilometres in the big event.
There were 244 finishers in the event which included individuals and teams of 2, 3 or 4 runners - the Challenge in July is for 4 person teams. Our Golden lads finished 28th overall and first 4 person team! A great effort and an indication that this team is going to do very very well, perhaps better than many expected.
Our CRR Black team of over 50’s turned their noses up at the event saying “We wouldn’t get out of bed for a lousy 29k run”. We notice some friendly rivalry (see pic above – face off, Black V Gold) developing between the two teams with another of the Black team commenting “See the photo of them Goldies in the paper? Media tarts the lot of ‘em”. Conversation between the two teams was strained at the briefing night this week as each sought to probe the other for tactics and expected finishing times. “I like a good probe” one of the Goldies stated.
Gold Coast is on Sunday July 4 and CRR is represented by a good crowd of marathon first timers and seasoned pro’s. Geoff W turns out for his gizzillionth Gold Coast marathon. It could be close to or even over 20 years now that he’s toed the line at this event. You couldn’t stop him with an axe. And 2 weeks later he’ll anchor the CRR Gold team at Kokoda. Go Geoff, go!
Anja and Bill have trained together for this event and both are looking dangerous as they taper for the big one. Both have done all the hard work expected to finish and both will do well. No doubt Glen will be there too in the half. Glen has a string of 10 marathons here (including sub 3's) and is working toward the same credentials in the half.
Brad K and his wife Natasha are back after debuts here last year. Having run with Brad a few times lately and not wanting to put the moccha on him, we nevertheless expect them both to finish between 3 hours and 3 hours 30 minutes. Look out for Brad in the 12/24 hour event late July too raising money for mens health.
Another couple of Parso’s are also at Goldy and backing up after their first tilt last year. My little bro’ Ian and lovely wife Nicole only started running relatively recently as part of a group of parents whose kids attend swim squad very early every morning (and afternoon). What started out as a casual jog and coffee for the mums and dads while waiting for their kids to train in the pool, slowly developed into a nucleus of keen runners many of whom took the marathon challenge in 2009. A big bunch of them are off to Everest Base Camp in Nepal later in the year too. Good luck on the run and on the trek. Also their son David, a champion swimmer, lines up at Kokoda in July in a high school kids team. He can run, he can swim…gotta admire that natural talent. But he’s not allowed to finish before his uncle though! By the way sister Meaghan also swims and runs and surfs and…..both are top students as well! (I now hear little Bro' is sidelined with a non running injury but he'll be there to cheer on Nicole and David).
Good luck to everyone on the Coast.
Woodford Fun Run and handicap last week is reported on the website but not everyone could make it. The Egs and Griffs had already committed to the Point Cartwright series but results are not yet in. No doubt they did us proud as usual. More in the next Wrap. Email news to admin@crr.org.au
