Ethiopian marathoner Kebede Balcha was one of those runners you wouldn’t know was there until they passed you – usually within sight of the finish line. He did it to Dave Chettle in the World Cup marathon in Montreal in 1979 and threatened to do it to Rob de...
ALTITUDE | A column by Jaryd Clifford – Runner’s Tribe
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
Sir Edmund Hillary
In the mountains, even the strongest stumble. Every step is gruelling, every breath a battle. It is an environment that demands courage. It is a place where only the toughest survive. It...
Written by Callen Goldsmith (science graduate and avid runner)
You need fast to spell fasted, so fasting should make you faster right? It only makes sense that this is the case. Why would they even write the word like that if it didn’t? So, if you’re faster by fasting, how fast...
Forgive me for bringing the sport of cycling into this but my most recent inspiration came from watching Hell of the North, which follows the Paris-Roubaix one day classic from the eyes of 2007 winner Stuart O'Grady. With cobblestones, sharp corners, rain, mud, snow and sometimes scorching heat, the...
A column by Len Johnson - Runner's Tribe
When Nike announced recently that its ‘window’ for the attempt to run the first sub-two hour marathon was 5-7 May, an intriguing possibility was raised.
The date dead-centre in the window, 6 May, is the sixty-third anniversary of the breaking of another famous...
If I’m recalling my year 12 physics correctly – which may be a risky proposition – two equal waves meeting as they cross a pond will cancel each other out at one point and perfectly reinforce each other at some other point. Choose the pinnacle of running excellence –...
It may be going a step too far to acclaim Magic Monday, day four of track and field competition at the Sydney Olympics, as perfect. Just as with records, one great day of athletics competition can eventually be surpassed by another. But it would be fair to say that anything better, even by the merest poofteenth, would have been perfect.
Topped by Cathy Freeman’s resounding victory in the 400 metres, a victory which, even if for a moment only, united a nation, reconciling Australia with a past it has all too often wished out of existence, the day’s nine finals generated wave after wave of emotion which, as they mutually reinforced each other, grew into a tsunami.
A column by Len Johnson
It’s easy to set a world record. Asked once how he felt about doing it, Ron Clarke responded that once you’ve set one it’s just a matter of running a personal best.
Clarke should know. He set anywhere from 18 to 21 world records in his...
The Stawell Gift may have had 138 previous runnings, but like most other major sporting events, it couldn’t put one foot in front of the other during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.
The 120-meter handicap sprint, run on a manicured grass track at Stawell’s Central Park, has launched a million stories...
The two women standing side by side at Lakeside Stadium had held the national record for 800 metres for a total of 28 years and 155 days.
Catriona Bisset had contributed just 11 days to that aggregate total, Charlene Rendina the other 28 years 144. It was Bisset’s 11 days...
