Sunday saw another great turn out at the Max Smith Memorial Event on the Moresby Ranges.

Many thanks to the following for making the event such a success.

Forbes Spillman for allowing us access to his property and addressing those present about his vision for a regional park on the Ranges. Please support this vision in any way you can.

Cari Taylor from Aimia Day Spa for her generous sponsorship of the event with the donated Aimia gift voucher awarded to Wendy Radcliffe (see attached photo).

Ironman and Ultra Marathon runner Robbie Place for donating a pile of new witches hats to the club. If you need any fire protection or safety supplies please contact Robbie on 1300 189 908 or drop into his shop at Shop 2/167 NWC Hwy.

Life Member Wendy Sekuloff for sharing her memories of Max Smith with us.

Committee man and club slave Dean Masotto for bringing a Cruiser full of roses for the pleasure of all the mothers present.

Bruce Kenney for his post event bagpipe playing which just added so much to an already great day/event.

Next week is the first of four championship events for 2012. The event will be held at Rundle Pk at St Georges Bch on Kempton St Bluff Point. For those who like to race this is your event. Get the competitive juices flowing, carb’ up and come down and have a fair dinkum crack and find out just how fast you can go. To be eligible for championship points you must be a paid up member on the day, you must have purchased a timing chip/band, and you must participate (or marshal) in at least 6 other non-championship events throughout the season.

For those who aren’t interested in being competitive and just want to come down and be social. No problem just turn up and treat it like any other week. The great thing about our club is the diversity of its members so just do whatever suits you. Oh yeah there will be pancakes and watermelon after the event.

Geraldton Harriers 2012 Championship trophies are as follows

Running:             Men-Long Course (Club Champion)

                              Women-Long Course (Club Champion)

                              Men-Short Course

                              Women-Short Course      

Walking:             Men-Long Course

                              Women-Long Course

                              Men-Short Course

                             Women-Short Course

 Juniors Trophies and encouragement award/s to be announced.

 Please keep in mind the Nukara event on Sunday 27th May. Harriers have booked the BBQ area for after the event and will whip up a sausage sizzle for your enjoyment. You are also welcome to bring your own meat/food.

 Hope to see you soon.

 Just keep walking and running

 Regards

 Geraldton Harriers

by Julia Thorn – Full Marathon Entrant

I had never been to Geraldton and I had never had any intention of going there. Until, that is, I found out that the city holds an annual marathon. I am a marathon runner so off I went.

The local Harrier club started holding their marathon in 2000, the Sydney Olympics year, and the race has been on the running calendar since then. In August 2007 I planned to make my first foray into mid western WA and run the race but I was sidelined with a stress fracture that saw me unable to run all that winter.

In July 2011 I finally made it to the start line. This was a good year to be going there. The marathon in 2011 marked a sort of coming of age for the event. Numbers in the full, half and quarter marathon rose considerably from earlier years. The organizers made certain innovations such as medals for all finishers, prizes for all place getters and spot prizes, helping to make the overall experience better for all participants.

The course was unchanged from previous years, although a new course is slated for 2012. The course comprised four laps of a beachside trail, centred on Rundle Park in the city’s north. Most of the route was alongside the ocean with a short detour inland to cross the Chapman River and run beside it for a few hundred metres. The whole course was sealed apart from the riverside portion and it was almost exclusively in parkland.

I was not that rapt about repeating a lap four times. I thought this could be mind numbing, which would in turn make it harder to maintain a good running pace. But that was before I saw how pretty the course was. You would be hard pressed to tire of the ocean view during four hours of running, accompanied by sounds of crashing waves and the ever changing sky.

Anyway, let’s focus on the plus side of running repeated laps. It’s handy if you want to maintain a steady pace as you can gauge how you are faring with each lap even when there are no kilometre markers. It gives spectators many opportunities to catch up with you and call out support, and best of all you get lots of chances to see the other runners. You also know exactly where every undulation is, where the wind is going to be most noticeable and where the drinks tables are.

I ran with a group of three Perth runners. This was unusual for me as I generally run alone. I have often found that running a marathon with others means that I can’t help but run at their pace and this wrecks my game plan. But here we settled into what for me was a comfortable pace and we ran even splits for the first three laps, chatting and laughing the whole way. Well, maybe not too much laughing, but we had a convivial time. We actually got noticed by all the other runners and by laps three and four everyone was calling out to us, ‘that group’, when they passed us. It was uplifting.

We had enough left for a sprint to the finish line. Some heavy rain on the middle two laps had us shivering for a while, but after we finished the clouds partially cleared.

There’s plenty of other stuff to do in Geraldton. The museum is excellent, telling the story of the development of the region and also providing a history of both the renowned Batavia trading ship and the HMAS Sydney. Be warned, the story of the Batavia can get quite grisly. The story of HMAS Sydney is just plain sad. There is a memorial to the latter on a hill overlooking the town.

There’s also a regional art gallery, a craft museum and an ornately decorated cathedral, as well as many white sand beaches. Geraldton is four hours’ drive north of Perth.