2008/09 Victorian Milers Club - Meet 2
Box Hill - Wednesday, 5 November 2008

The second meeting of the Victorian Milers Club for season 2008/09 was staged at Box Hill in mild conditions with a fresh breeze down the back straight. The program for the evening consisted of the 1500 metres and 5000 metres, with five Coburg Harriers being graded in the B Race of the longer event. Two pacemakers were employed for this heat, with one to run at low 16 minute pace (16:00 - 16:15) and the other to run at mid 16 minute pace (16:25 - 16:35).

Leading out for the Harriers was gun recruit Liam Magee who had made huge strides in his comeback to peak form in the first three rounds of the Athletics Victoria Shield season. With 9:00.85 in the 3000 metres in Round 3, Magee was hopeful of recording a time of around sixteen minutes and through the first kilometre gave himself every chance with 3:11 on the clock.

After five laps the pacemaker dropped off and Magee was out on his own. With two kilometres remaining, Magee was right on the pace but the conditions started to tell and his lap rating was starting to drop slightly. Nevertheless, Magee would cross the line to win the heat in an excellent 16:14 - a time that would have been quite competitive in the first heat. Although disappointed with the effort, he will be much better for the run. It took a whopping 45 seconds off his previous effort over the distance (in Round 2 of AV Shield).

Next home for the Harriers was Jeremy Grey. Hopeful of breaking through the 16:30 barrier, Grey was on target through the first kilometre with a 3:17 first kilometre split and was bunched nicely in a group of other runners. Through two kilometres and the field had strarted to string itself out. After the third kilometre, Grey was running out on his own in second place and on track to break through for a personal best. From here things started to go pear shaped. Each lap split was slower than the last and Grey would drop some twenty seconds. To add insult to injury, he would get passed by two runners in the closing stages to slip back to a disappointing fourth place and 17:01 - some thirty seconds outside the goal time.

The third Coburg Harrier to cross the line was Philip van Dueren in ninth place. In a very strong race van Dueren worked in well with a large group of runners - including Coburg fun run regular Tony Dell - that shared the workload into the wind. With a kilometre to go van Dueren made a decisive break and hit the line close behind two other runners to record a personal best 18:20.9 and just five seconds adrift of seventh place

In thirteenth place overall was Ken Souyave. Working himself back into some good form, Souyave went very close to breaking nineteen minutes to cross in 19:09.60 to eclipse his own Coburg Harriers club age group record for M55-59 by 8 seconds. Its worth considering that in eighteen months time Ken Souyave turns sixty years of age and should he slow with the extra months even only a little, he will still be on track to break every club distance record from 800 metres upwards

And super coach Brian Delaney was the final Harrier to finish. Delaney took the first kilometre out reasonably fast and was on twenty minute pace through the first couple of laps. From here Delaney said he began to feel the hot pace of the fast start and was doing it pretty tough. But in true Delaney guts and determination spirit, he battled his way through to finish in 20:46.5

So in summary a fantastic performance from all our Coburg Harriers with the efforts from Magee, van Dueren and Souyave of particiular note. Conditions were somewhat tougher than they seemed and this is evidenced by the fact that only three of the fourteen runners in the the elite first heat recorded personal best times

The next Victorian Milers Club meet will be held on Tuesday, 16 December 2008 and given it is at the North West Region venue of Aberfeldie, would be great to have as many of our middle distance squad there as possible. The event has special significance as it has the Victorian Mile Championships on the program. For our female runners, it affords an opportunity to write your name in the club record books as no records exist for this distance. Given the meet is being held locally, lets make sure Aberfeldie is awash with Coburg Harriers singlets