2014 COBURG 6 HOUR CHAMPIONSHIPS

The annual Coburg 6 Hour Track Championships were held on the morning of Sunday 23 February 2014 in their usual location at the Harold Stevens Athletics track in Coburg. The 6AM start time ensured runners and walkers only had to contend with the last couple of hours of hot sunny conditions, and the newly refreshed track surface gave maximum chance for good performances. Overall, the 33 runners and 9 walkers made the most of the occasion with a whole swathe of good performances.

The four event categories saw the early pace setters maintain strong leads throughout the race and all four were were rewarded with excellent totals

There were a number of record breaking performances

• Bernadette Benson set a whole swag of records with her 6 Hour winning run of 74.930km.
• John Nuttall set a new Australian M60 6 Hour Run record of 69.882km
• Terry O’Neill set a new Australian M55 6 Hour Walk record of 53.786km and broke our Coburg 6 Hour Championship Men’s walk record
• Michelle Thompson set a new Australian W45 6 Hour Walk record of 55.731km
• Peter van Wijngaarden set a new Coburg 6 Hour Championship record with his winning run of 80.874km

We were also privileged to be present for a record breaking performance of a different sort when UAE based runner Maria Conceicao and Qatar based runner Ziyah Rahim each completed their fifth ultra out of seven in a challenge to run seven ultras (50km or further) in the seven different continents in seven weeks. They had already run in Antarctica, in South America, in Asia and in England in the previous 4 weeks before arriving at Coburg for leg five. Then it was onto USA and South Africa for their final two legs over the following 2 weeks. They ran in a special 50km category and each completed their required 50km with times as follows

Overall results read as follows: