Last Saturday saw the running of the 30th Six Foot Track. Having run my first marathon in Canberra in April 1997, I was keen to run off road. (Trail Running, an American expression I think, was never used in Australia till the mid 2000s). However I had no luck in convincing any of my running mates to join me. So, with family in toe we left Sydney very early to arrive in time for me to register and join the start (They still accepted on the day entries in 1998). There were 449 starters that day with 420 finishers and 408 or 91% finishing within the cutoff. I decided to take it easy and remember suddenly realising I was probably taking it too easy when I turned around at the bottom of the steps to see the guy I was talking to was the event sweeper dressed up as the Grim Reaper! I was at the very rear of the field! Good news is that I had one of my best days ever running. It was a cool 10 degrees and I spent the rest of the day overtaking people finishing the older longer course in 227th place in a time of 5:41:43. It was only years later that I discovered that my uncle, Michael Hickman and old family friend and well known NSW pollie, Kerry Chikarovski, also ran that day (and presumably I ran past them at some stage). Both however missed the 7 hr cutoff and hence went home without a medal... Kerry by all of 44 seconds and Michael by 5min 19 sec. I wanted to tell this story to honour my Uncle Michaels unsung part of the history of the 6ft Track. He returned again the following year in 1999 aged 65 and again finished but missed a medal by 13 min 17 sec. Not to be deterred, Michael returned once more in 2004 aged 70, but even with the hour early start he missed the cut by 3 min 52 seconds! Three SFTs! Three finishes! No medal! Im guessing that in the 30 year history of the event, there cant be too many stories to compare! But it is these pgreat epic stories of mere mortals trying and trying again, that make the sport of trail running so great! I still rate my 1998 run as one of the best days out on the trail! I was hooked! And the rest is history, as they say!
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:41:27 +0000
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