Feral Postcards
Date: Friday, 6 May 2016
From: Brendon
The Horror, The Pain ... what pain?
Scientists say the brain doesn’t remember pain and that theory is well and truly reinforced at Albury’s 11.3km Nail Can Hill Run. You remember you’ve run it several times before but when you’re heading up that hill you just don’t remember it hurting as bad as that.
2016 saw the 40th running of the event which continues to grow and with 929 finishers this year it made for a great atmosphere at the start and finish lines. Heff, Mrs Heff (Leanne), Jeremy and Brendon commuted together, Janet took the “scenic” route courtesy of her Sat Nav and we met an eager Lena at the start. Conditions were cool with the strong gusting winds at times threatening to tear off your race bib. Thankfully the predicted four-to-six inches of rain were replaced by a few heavy showers in the 48 hours leading into the race leaving the track in reasonable shape.
Brendon was, unusually, the first Feral across the line in 53.38 with Heff only 25 seconds behind him. Lena (58.52) was more than two minutes faster than her 2015 race time and Janet was eighth in her category with her time of 63.07. “Mr Consistent” Jeremy posted 61.46, an almost identical time to 2015 proving that one training run per week is definitely enough.
Paddy’s Irish Pub was our lunch destination this trip and the parmies were up there with the best (and biggest) and as usual the beers were hard to beat too.
What happened to Leanne I hear you ask? After enjoying breakfast with her daughter from Melbourne she met us at the finish line, and no she wasn’t the designated driver, well at least not until we got back to Leeton where Heff enjoyed a “couple” of well-earned cold ones!
We’ll be back next year, some for the fun, others to settle unfinished business and… I’ve already forgotten how much it hurt!
David, Leanne, Jeremy, Janet, Lena and Brendon
Date: Tuesday, 3 May 2016
From: Di
Speedy Ferals
Catholic Diocesan Carnival held last Friday at Holbrook included all Catholic schools from Albury, Wagga, Griffith and surrounds.
Our young Ferals gave it an rhg and the following have qualified for the NSW Catholic Cross Country at Eastern Creek in June.
3km Runners
Breanna Restagno (1st)
Ava Kelly (7th)
Taine Moraschi (5th)
2km Runners
Ella Savage (3rd)
Jordan Piva (6th)
Reserve runners are
Milla Vecchio (10th)
Luca Piva (10th)
Date: Monday, 25 April 2016
From: Neil
Blayney Blues
Elio & myself, a few other Ferals, and a heap of Cycle Club members endured the bastardry of the Blayney to Bathurst. That's Elio in the photo staging an incident to avoid the pain of the Rockley Hill. It would have been a pleasant 100km without the Rockley Hill which is plainly inserted for the gonzo element on two wheels and not us normal people. Beside the ride, the highlight of the weekend was the best Lebanese food I've had for decades at Malouf's in Bathurst ... if you are passing that way, Malouf's Bathurst!
Neil 4:24:40 Elio 4:48:30 Don't ask for age placing ... 50-64 years is a ridiculously unfair age spread!!
Date: Saturday, 26 March 2016
From: Neil
Postcard from Timing Central
What a day. Thanks heaps to the St Pats helpers. They were flawless, none of the day's chaos was their fault. It helped this year that we had 400 online entries, and needed to cope with only 100 on the day. (Last year 200 pre entry and 300 on the day) This is a HUGE PLUS for accuracy and sanity.
So what went wrong? The problem was down at the mats, which were not reading all the bibs. Early in the race they were reading about 10% of the bibs, improving to about 95% later on. We had trialled these tags at the Half on the Hill without trouble. We are told they should read better than the shoe tags. More investigation required.
It was difficult, but we did get the prizegiving correct in the end. Apologies to Angharad who got her prize but missed her moment on the podium. And thanks to David for putting us straight.
So although our certificate printing was working fine, we could not proceed as the certificates would have had missing times, and way wrong placings.
How did we get the times then? The GoPro takes one photo per second, so we matched runners without times between those runners with times. Your time is correct to the nearest second.
ps Yes, I did spill coffee all over the laptop and almost stuffed it, but it dried out and is still working fine ... surely that's covered by warranty?
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