World 24 Hour Championships
Bergamo, Italy
2 – 3 May 2009

The seventh running of the International Association of Ultra Runners (IAU) 24 Hour World Challenge took place on 2 – 3 May 2009 in Bergamo. The host city in northern Italy, has a population of 100,000 and is located about 40 km from Milan.

Competitors were presented at the opening ceremony the evening before the race at the Centro Congressi with athletes marching on stage as their countries were called to the enthusiastic applause of the sizable crowd. The opening ceremony was followed by a pasta party.

The event was held on a 1133.945 metre loop that ran through the city centre on a relatively flat course, that was run mainly on asphalt. Some 206 athletes from 28 countries lined up at the start, a new record in the history of this event. The weather forecast promised fine conditions with a top of 23 degrees dropping to eleven degrees overnight.

Australia was represented by a full men’s team and one sole female representative, Coburg Harrier’s own Deanne Nobbs, her third international team following her selection at the 2008 World 24 Hour Champs and the 100 km Road World Cup in 2007.

The event kicked off at 10:00 am with the temperature at a comfortable but cool fifteen degrees. Nobbs began at a steady pace and through the four hour mark had already racked up over forty kilometres. A slight drop off in pace over the next hour saw Nobbs drop twelve places to 132nd spot overall.

It was at this point that conditions were at their warmest and several athletes began to pay for a fast start. The mercury topped 25 degrees and competitors remarked afterwards that it felt quite a bit warmer out on the course. Indeed, with the humidity hovering at 60% several athletes had to be hospitalised from heat exhaustion and one of the Australian male runners was in some distress, having collapsed on a number of occasions.

With the temperature easing, Nobbs came back strong with an impressive nineteen kilometres added in the two hours to 6:00 pm. Having passed the eight hour mark, Nobbs again found a comfortable pace and in the four hours until the sun set at 9:00 pm, Nobb’s was almost metronomic in recording 7.93, 7.96, 7.93 and 7.93 kilometres per hour.

With such a consistent performance, Nobbs hit the halfway mark having improved seven places to 124th overall. This seemed to inspire Nobbs and she added eight kilometres before settling back to flit between 5.67 and 6.80 kilometres an hour as the body began to tire and the mind willed legs to keep going, keep moving.

Whatever strategy Nobbs adopted for the night hours seemed to be working. At 1:00 am, Nobbs was in 113th place overall but by 5:00 am Nobbs was inside the top 100 and still going strong. As is so often the case with ultra runners, dawn seemed to inspire a renewed pace, and Nobbs picked up her speed putting together three 7 kilometre hours in a row and with two hours to go, Nobbs was placed 94th overall.

The last two hours saw Nobbs put together almost thirteen more kilometres to pick up another place and finish 93rd overall with 184.03 kilometres. A fantastic performance and as one of her team-mates noted, Nobbs rarely left the track throughout the entire race. When the final placings were tallied, Nobbs had also finished as the 30th placed female.

Congratulations Deanne from all your friends at the Coburg Harriers.