December 2011 Newsletter - West Australian Marathon Club

Fremantle Fun Run
By Bob Braid, Race Director
I have been directing events
for 29 years and this one
would have to be the most
challenging to date. Even
though I have directed the
Fremantle Fun Run since
1990, the gods decided it was
time to test us by throwing in
a few wobbly ones.
First, in the approval stage
the City of Fremantle advised
that Car Park No.2 would
be closed by the time of the
event due to the construction
of a new access road across
the railway to the Fishing
Boat Harbour. No problem, a
variation to latest year’s course
Super speedy Bri Ilarda.
Photo credit: Dash Photography was devised, measured and
mapped, and marshals’ instructions prepared. Approval
consequently obtained from the City of Fremantle. On
the Friday morning prior to the event I was doing my
final site inspection to ensure everything was hunky
dory and discovered a fence across the shared path
near the Round House that effectively blocked all access
from Fishing Boat Harbour to all points north (including
the Round House and South Mole). At this stage the
path was still intact but despite pleas to the works
supervisor and the City of Fremantle to delay ripping
up the path until Monday, the path was ripped up by the
afternoon. To aggrevate the situation, the works were
being done on behalf of the City of Fremantle.
The problem now was that we didn’t have a course.
That was not such a problem in itself as I intended
to measure a new one; the problem was to get all
the approvals through in an afternoon. Normally, the
minimum time for the approval process is four weeks.
This involves firstly getting the City of Fremantle
approval for the event which includes approval of a
traffic management plan, then local police approval,
then these approvals are sent to the Midland Police
Events Section for signing off by the Commissioner.
A new course was quickly put together and the traffic
management company contacted to prepare a revised
traffic management plan. Eldon George, our intrepid
admin officer, then went into action to push all steps
in the approval process, eventually securing the signed
off approval on Saturday morning ... a monumental
effort. In the meantime, the course needed to be
measured, new maps and marshal instructions drawn
up and of course all this whilst attending to Runner’s
World business and customers. To top it off, Saturday
afternoon was consumed with setting up the start /
finish area on the Esplanade.
In the rush and with a couple different versions of
the course maps, the wrong map was referred to
when setting up the 5k turn point on Capo D’Orlando
Drive resulting in the 5k course being 350m short. My
apologies to those who thought they had run PBs.
The few helper “no shows” didn’t make it any easier
and on this note, whilst the majority of members do
honour their commitment, I implore those who think
“they don’t really need me” to reconsider as we do
really need you; tasks are allocated on the assumption
that you will show up and if you don’t, you place more
pressure on others.
Despite all this and a couple of other incidents due to
haste, we got there.
To the race itself:
The gods must have decided that we had been tested
enough and turned on a near perfect day for running
-- clear skies with temperature around 5C during set
up, rising to about 10C by start time at 7.30am and a
gentle (if not a little chilly) ENE 10kph breeze. David
Lazarus was the first to complete the 4.65km course
in a time of 15.13 (which equates to 16.22 for a full 5k),
followed by a fast finishing David Cane (15.16) and Chris
Cummins (15.19). Youngster, Bri Ilarda (16.10 which
equates to 17.23 for a full 5k), continued her dominance
in the shorter events to be the first female, followed by
Mathilda Connell (17.26) and Katrina Geyer (18.00).
Gerard Hill (33.25) was first to complete the two lap
10k course, followed by Scott Thomson (33.29) and the
perennial Stephen Stockwell (33.52). Jaz Hedgeland
(38.29) was the first female, followed by Rachael Smith
(38.44) and Katrina Geyer (40.40).
My thanks to the 50 or so helpers who pitched in either
during the setup on the Saturday or on the day to make
it an enjoyable experience for all concerned. Definitely
most appreciated and not possible without their help.
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