Date: Tuesday, 1 March 2016

From: Brendon

Oh No, Wanged Again!

Wangaratta Marathon and Fun Runs 2016
We headed to Wangaratta on Saturday afternoon arriving at our accommodation at 5pm. We needed to be up at 4:45am so a good night’s sleep was in order.

Rodney         “Hi, we have a reservation in the name of Savage”
Reception Lady     “Mr Savage, we have you booked in for tomorrow night and we’re booked out tonight”
Rodney         “oh”
Derek         “oh F#%k”
Brendon      (Crying)

With every other room in Wangaratta booked out we considered our options.
1.     Buy a donkey and see if the local inn had a vacant stable
2.     Buy camping equipment
3.     Drive home
4.     Search for a room in a nearby town

We investigated option 4 and luckily Beechworth Lunatic Asylum had one last room available and we grabbed it. Well not quite, the former nurse’s quarters for the decommissioned asylum have been renovated making it very interesting accommodation.   It was lucky Rod got the date of our dinner reservation right so we enjoyed a meal and a bottle of red (to, ahem, assist our movements the next day) then headed 35kms down the road to Beechworth.

After a reasonable night’s sleep we awoke to find the windows open, curtains flapping in the breeze and the strong smell of chloroform but more importantly a day perfect for running. We eagerly readied ourselves, packed the car and headed back in to Wangaratta to join our starting groups.

Rodney completed the 10km journey in 38:04, an impressive 7th place in the 350 strong field, while Derek also impressed finishing 30th with his 44:56. Not Derek’s best time over that distance with blame attributed to the difficulties of removing the straight jacket pre-race.   After battling with his hamstring for more than a week Brendon managed to line up and complete the marathon in 3hrs 33mins, above his target time of 3hrs 30min but an eleven minute PB certainly made those post-race beers taste good. He placed 32nd of the 130 starters.

We also bumped into Keith & Val. Keith finished the 10km race in 88th and Val competed in the 5km event.

So that was Wang run and done for another year. Maybe you’ll join us next year – know how to book a motel?

P.S. The parmies at Yarrawonga were as good as ever although Derek was disappointed he wasn’t offered a lei with his Hawaiian variety.

Rodney, Derek, Brendon