AGE GROUP RECORDS FOR WILSON AT INVITATIONAL

Contributed by Greg Wilson, AURA member (Kyneton, Vic) & Christy Lambert, AURA member (Romsey, Vic)

AUSTRALIAN 24 HOUR TRACK INVITATIONAL, CANBERRA (ACT), 2-3 July 2022

Christy Lambert’s previous visit to the Australian Institute of Sport’s (AIS) track in Canberra was about 25 years ago. The 17-year-old aspiring 400-metre hurdler completed the grueling event and promptly bounded up into the stands to chat with her support team. Her coach (Olympian Pam Ryan) asked Christy to turn around and look down at the track. Her opponents were all still sprawled on the track in varying stages of exhaustion. This learning experience may well have been to show Christy that she could have put more into the event, but much more likely it was to bring home the depth of Christy’s running endurance.

Fast forward to Saturday, 2 July 2022 and Christy’s second attempt at running for 24 hours, a few months after debuting with victory in the Victorian 24 Hour Championship at Coburg (175km). With a sensible, conservative start Christy was able to overcome the bitterly cold conditions and various health ailments, to achieve 1st Female victory in the Open Event with a new Personal Best of 184.044km.

By remarkable coincidence this was right in the middle of the distances achieved by training partner Greg Wilson on debut at Coburg back in 1992 (181.1km) and Wollongong 1994 (189.9km). This was around the same period that Christy was exuberantly bounding up the AIS grandstand!

The last time Wilson was at the AIS track was in February this year when after a break of 25 years he had a belated attempt at a long standing 100 Mile Australian Age Record held by ‘folk legend’ Cliff Young (Male 65-69 of 22:28:05). Having only one 6 Hour event, due to years of Covid cancellations and a bad injury, it was ‘highly ambitious’ to, at 69, attempt a record that ‘Cliffy’ set in 1988 aged 65!

So it proved, as after 15 hours of running and still 1hr 30m in front of record pace, Wilson retired from the event.

Again moving on to the present and in the same event as Christy, it was time for his first serious attempt at the records in his new M70 age group. It must be said that if aiming to complete a 24 Hour event it is not a good race plan, to attempt a series of records at intermediate distances. Going too hard early is a recipe for much discomfort later. However if you doubt you can even complete the long distance, then it would be foolhardy to bypass records along the way. Hence the plan was to aim for intermediate records, use up the petrol doing so and whatever happens later, was probably going to occur anyway!

Australian M70 Age Group Records set on 2-3 July 2022:

• 6 Hour             61.9km      (was 58.531km John Nuttall 2022)
• 50 Mile            8:32:39           (was 8:38:23 Harry Davis 2014)
• 100km            11hr 15m    (was 11:42:29 John Nuttall 2022)
• 12 Hour      106km             (was 102km John Nuttall 2022)

Wilson: In March with one 6 Hour under my belt, I went to Canberra at 69 (Sri Chinmoy) with the belated (and cheeky) thought that I could attempt the oldest M65 record on the books (100 Mile Cliff Young 22:28:05 at 65yo). Not really believing. I lasted 15 hours (115km) and went home, though 1hr 30 ahead of record pace.

Once more back in Canberra I was again in my tent at 15 hours. Got back out and finished, along the way surpassing Cliffy’s mark by 1min 38 sec, while not even aware of it, as not on my M70 list!

At the Invitational: By the time I passed the first record I was not feeling great, so had a brief break and resumed at a slower pace. That wasn’t going to achieve an 80km record, so there were 10 laps back down to my early pace, to nab it by 6 mins.

A few slow laps to recover from the effort and then picked up the pace again, prior to a brief break and then settling on 3 laps run/3 laps walk. The calculation was this should be sufficient to attain the 100km/ 12 hour marks. This was the case as I was able to shave over 27 mins off the 100km and accrue an extra 4km for the 12 Hour.

All that effort and we were now only halfway. 8pm on a frigid Canberra night and the next record mark seemed mentally and physically impossible, over 10 hours away!

I walked. Later on when told I would need to run to be in the record ‘ballpark’, I tried running a few. Nope! I was having trouble going in a straight line on the track and knew from my ancient history that it was not a good sign. I managed a good period of 3 laps run/3 laps walk. The problem was this had been devised to maintain record pace and both my walking and running speed had deteriorated badly. ‘Losing my rudder’ after 328 laps I steered it towards my collapsed tent, wrapped myself in a doona and just lay there.

I could hear crew member Frankie lying straight faced to the Race Director saying ‘Don’t worry, it’s all part of the plan.’ Christy was still out there, gamely completing laps, while no doubt feeling as bad as I did. Crucially the thought that this exactly what transpired at 15 hours last time I was in Canberra.

Eventually although with no plan, I stumbled back out to the track (lap 327 took 47min 50s!) and walked…then ran. I can’t remember doing it for 6 hours but I settled into walking the bends and running the straights. Matthew Eckford (RD) asked at one stage if I was aiming for 100 Miles (meaning the record) and I replied, ‘That’s the intention!’ (meaning by the end of 24 hours).

As I came closer to the 22 hour mark, I realised that I was going to finish this thing and that the 100 Mile record was still a possibility. So it transpired:

• 100 Mile          22:26:27          (was 22:39:55 Deryck Skinner 2005)
• 24 Hour      170.5km          (was 166.33km Deryck Skinner 2005)

I hadn’t paid much attention to what these final two were, as they seemed a most unlikely achievement. With a few laps to go it sunk in that I had already passed the 24 Hour record, so I just walked, smiled, danced around Christy and just made sure I got over 170km, as it was a nice round number.

Pictured: Christy Lambert and Greg Wilson at the 2022 Australian 24 Hour Track Invitational. Photograph – Supplied.