2006 Yearly Report

The 2006 Australian Centurions 24 Hour Walk
22-23 April 2006
Harold Stevens Athletics Track, Coburg

The 2006 Coburg 24 Hour carnival was held on the weekend of 22-23 April at the Harold Stevens Reserve in Coburg. A total of 25 walkers and 27 runners submitted entries and all bar a few late scratchings keenly contested the various running and walking events on offer. It was particularly gratifying to see 31 of the 52 entrants choosing to compete in the 24 Hour events.

The carnival started at 10AM on the Saturday morning in typical Melbourne autumnal weather – variable and impossible to predict! The forecast threatened showers but luckily the race was spared and conditions, although slightly on the cold side, turned out to be nearly ideal for such an event.

The 24 Hour Walk events saw 4 walkers – Jens Borello, Pat Fisher, Deryck Skinner and Geoff Hain - reach the 100 mile mark and thus achieve the Centurion standard.

• Jens Borello from Denmark was already a triple centurion - Continental (C317 22:15:34 2004), British (C1026 23:17:36 2006) and American (C62 23:21:14 2006) – and he made the trip to Australia specifically for this event. He judged his pace perfectly, sitting back in the field as others pushed the pace early. His patience was rewarded as those ahead of him came back to the field. He took the lead soon after the 100 km mark and was untroubled to become Australian Centurion number 52 with a fine time of 22:33:01
  
• Patrick Fisher came into the event with only one ultra distance walk to his credit, a noteworthy 87.8 km in the 2006 Gosford 12 Hour. Prepared by and supported during the event by Canberra based centurions Robyn White and Carol Baird, he always looked strong and was still full of walking as he reached the 100 mile mark in 23:10:38 to become Australian Centurion number 53.
  
• Deryck Skinner became Australian Centurion number 51 with an astonishing walk in the 2006 Sri Chinmoy. Aged 72 years at that time, he completed the 100 miles in 22:39:55 to set a whole swag of new Australian M70 running and walking records. Now aged 73, he completed his second centurion qualifier, this time with a time of 23:23:43.
• Geoff Hain, Australian Centurion number 49, had already completed 3 100 mile qualifiers in the previous 18 months (including one in NZ). Coming from a backgound as an ultra distance runner, he has made a very successful transition to ultra distance walking and produced a fourth centurion performance at Coburg in a time of 23:38:25.

Of particular interest to all was the race within a race between octogenarians Ken Matchett (84 years young) and Stan Miskin (80 years young) who between them broke (subject to ratification) six IAU World M80 running records. Ken, entered as a runner, broke the World M80 records for 30 Miles, 40 Miles, 50 Miles and 12 Hours. Stan, entered as a walker, broke the World M80 24 hour record. The World M80 100 km record was almost certainly also broken but we will have to wait a few days to see which of these combatants passed that milestone first.

CENTURION WALK QUALIFIERS