2014 Summer Runs - Race 5
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Merciful running conditions and the imminent end to the school holidays allowed for an extended distance and a busier start line at the Griffith Joggers weekly run on Scenic hill on Saturday.
There were sixty nine starters in the short and fifty two starters in the long, compared to the Area News report stumbled upon during the week from December 10th 1993 which claimed a headline of "Good field for hill run" as twenty eight runners contested the race, and just five in the short run.
Names from this report that are still on the hill were John Johns who has just been here forever, his nemesis John Dodd, a youthful Stewart Wood, Paul Muir, Dom Calabria, and Cesar Cabrera who was the second fastest on the day behind the legendary Clay Ridley.
For twenty years the Joggers did not have a short run, and so rarely had any younger or older runners, and then it was a few years before it became accepted and popular.
Now it often has more starters than the long, is popular with juniors and beginners, and is a chance for partygoers to get out and back quickly and still have time to get their hair done.
In the long run this week the ten minute group with Di Keenan as captain and the fourteen minute group under the control of David Heffer, share the prize of "most sociable", but as usual the short run showed no sign of being sociable.
In fact, the pair of Jordan and Chris Piva finished so far ahead of time that the computer refused to accept them as legitimate finishers and they will be starting further back in their next outing.
Next week is the last of the holiday series of runs and the forecast is for extreme heat, possibly 42°C, so as per the Joggers hot weather guidelines there will be restrictions for juniors and beginners, shorter distances, and as well each Jogger should question whether they are right to run, or whether they should stay at home under the cooler.
Regardless, all runners must drink plenty of water during the two days before the run - drinking during the run is really too late – but wet shirts, wet hats and the like is the best way to keep cool during the run.
The Bacchus Competition starts the week after and is a ten race program leading up to the Flexible Solutions Bacchus on the Lake at Easter.
The weekly runs start at 5:30pm from the water tower on the Hill, be early to enter.