2022 March Tan Time Trial Results

President’s Tan Talk –  Mar 2022

Forecasts of potentially heavy rain saw a smaller than usual crowd at the March Tan Time Trial. Clearly the Bureau of Meteorology (and some of our members) forgot that it virtually never rains during the Tan Time Trial, a total of about three times since the 1980’s in my recollection, that’s less than one in a hundred!! Before the Tan, or after the Tan, but almost never during the Tan!! And as it happened, we welcomed a first-timer, all the way from Hong Kong.

Two significant milestones were celebrated, Kim Owens 250 TTT’s (actually run in February), before being sidelined with an injury, and Ian Godfrey 300 TTT’s, both sensational achievements over more than twenty years, big congratulations to both, see photos below.

Members were reminded that due to a clash of runs the April TTT would start and finish around in Birdwood Avenue, opposite the Shrine, where we used to start finish years back.

Anniversary Dinner

We are looking to hold our 40^th Anniversary Dinner later in the year, as our ‘birthday’ is in early November. We will provide more details in the coming months.

A big thank you as ever to our volunteers for their great work. Although we might make it all look effortless, it isn’t, so many thanks.

Happy running,
Michael
VRR President

I eventually sold my racer to buy my first motorbike before turning 18 and did very little in the way of exercise for many years. It was only after moving into a share house in North Sydney in 1993 that the 11 year hiatus was broken, but not with any pre-conceived intention. I had enlisted with four others to do a year of volunteer work in inner Sydney and, as I had been commissioned to work two days a week with struggling migrant and refugee kids in an inner-city primary school, I found that my finishing times were considerably earlier than my housemates whose placements were more like a conventional 9 to 5 arrangement. One afternoon, I arrived home around 4pm and felt a sudden urge to go for a jog along nearby Military Road to see where it went. Well, with daylight savings on my side, I soon reached the Spit Bridge and realised that if I could keep it going a bit longer, I would eventually hit the sea at Manly. Without even knowing it, I had completed my very first City to Surf, albeit on the opposite side of the Harbour to the official route. The running seeds had been sown!

A few months later, I entered myself into ‘Group C’ (for the gorilla suits, clowns and those expecting to run the 14km’s in 120+ minutes, if I recall correctly) of a real City to Surf. I remember wearing a pair of very tight nylon Aussie Rules shorts and a pair of ex-Army Reserve Dunlop K2’s or something. I got to the end in a respectable 86 minutes, but then experienced a profound stinging and realised that I had blood dripping down the inside of both legs. The first aid tent scolded me for not applying Vaseline pre-race ‘wherever there’s friction’ and also advised to never run again in nylon AFL shorts – possibly the best running advise I was ever given.

I managed to get my City to Surf time down to 72 minutes a couple of years later and, in my capacity as Warden of Residential Halls at Wollongong University, in 1996 entered the largest team (193 student runners) in that year’s race. It was such a big event for our cohort that Channel Nine’s local news even did a feature story on our team. That same year, I attempted my first half marathon (1.51) and, three months later and quite underdone, my first full marathon (5.19).

Returning to Melbourne in 1997, I kept the running bug alive by doing my first Melbourne Marathon. After achieving Spartan status with ten years of marathon times either side of four hours, I made a decision in 2007 to introduce some weekly racing and time trials into my training – facilitated by joining Victorian Road Runners and Glen Eira Masters – and saw immediate dividends, dropping to 3.13 in 2008 and a PB of 3.03 in 2009 – I even qualified for Boston and did a 3.16 there in 2010.

It would have been nice to have broken three hours for the marathon, but one kind Road Runner a few years ago informed me that, in fact, I had – or at least would have, had the Royal Family’s desire to watch the Marathon start from the balcony at Windsor Castle not caused the marathon length to increase from 40 k’s to 42.2 k’s at the first London Olympics. He pointed out, furthermore, that my 3.03 time for 42.2 k’s would have seen me crossing the 40k finishing post a few minutes ahead of the winner’s 2.58 at the 1896 Athens Games – although I suppose  Spyridon Louis’s runners were more akin to Roman sandles than the high tech shoes we wear today.

Over 42 years ago I decided that fun running was a good way of keeping slightly fit after I gave up not too serious football.
I discussed it with a friend of mine at work and we both entered our first fun run, with no training – it was the 1980 Big M Melbourne marathon from Frankston to Melbourne. We envisaged that we might get half way.
Along the way we came across a runner who seemingly was in some trouble and I asked if he was OK and he said he had just come out of hospital on the day

  And just for the Dad’s….
Why was the runner in the marathon stopped and taken to jail?
He was resisting a rest.
What do runners eat before a big race?
Fast food.