ANZAC
Ultra Race Director Report
5
years / 5 weeks – A Long Journey with a Great Conclusion.
It
was ANZAC Day 2010 when I was at the Dawn Service at the Australian War
Memorial, Kevin Rudd was our Beloved Prime Minister. He was delivering his
keynote address and talking about the upcoming ANZAC Centenary set down for
2015. He was mentioning that communities around Australia would be having
special events to remember the ANZAC Centenary. My mind started to wander and
thinking that " Ultrarunning should hold and do something for the ANZAC
Centenary". From that moment, the ANZAC Ultra was born.
A
couple of weeks after that, I posted on the Coolrunning Message Board about the
idea. I think my original idea was for a Hyde Park to the Australian War
Memorial and return race. Someone ( I cant remember who) suggested the route of
the original Cooee March between Gilgandra and Sydney. I did some extra research
and decided that this was the route for the ANZAC Ultra.
Apart
from remembering the ANZAC Centenary, I wanted to raise funds for one of the
Ex-Service organisations. It was only fair that as a RSL member I would
approach the NSW RSL first and offer to raise funds for them. Very frustrating
to deal with and after trying for twelve months, I switched my attention to
Legacy. They were very keen to be involved, but there were restrictions and I
would be doing all the hard work myself. In hindsight - only fair.
The next two/three years was spent developing
this into a fully fledged race. It was going to be a Town to Town Stage race
with three distance options which would meander towards Sydney over a week with
more and more runners joining, climaxing in a big finish in Hyde Park just
before ANZAC Day. I had recced the course a couple of times, completed the risk
management plan and other application requirements. Unfortunately it wasn’t to
be and the NSW Police rightly knocked it back. Back to the drawing board!
This
is probably a good time as any to mention the many people that helped on the
Committee for the ANZAC Ultra. They were Sally Dean, Belinda Essam, Andrew
Butler, Steve Appleby, Billy Pearce, Jesse McCullough, Sandra Howorth, Natalie
Watson, Kirrily Dear, Dean Cox, Jessica Robson and Cathie Wiltshire. All helped
in their own way and at various times to bring this race together. Thankyou. I
know I was a demanding RD sometime, but I could never have done it on my own.
Two
other burecratic processes achieved in the early days was to get DVA
accreditation to use the word "ANZAC" in the race title and also to
get endorsement from the Australian Defence Forces. Both important stages and
both helped to give credibility to the race.
April was locked in as the month of the race
from an early stage. I knew that it was a busy time in the Ultra Calender and
likely to be a busy time in the ANZAC Centenary, but it had to be April.
Even
though I have never been a " Trail friendly " Ultra runner /walker, I
was aware of the great trails and the Canberra Centenary Trail that had been
brought together by the ACT Government. It was always in the back of my mind as
an alternative " ANZAC Ultra" route.
When
the NSW Police knocked back the " Cooee March" route, I immediately
turned our attention to the Canberra Centenary Trail route. Took some
discussion amongst the Committee to agree on this strategy, but Steve Appleby (
the Canberra Trail Guru) was succinctly positive that it could be done and the
ANZAC Ultra V2 was born and after my quick Recce of the course I could see that
there were some fantastic trails with great views and close to Canberra. We
also had two possible start/ finish areas right on the route. I reasoned that
the Canberra Defence , Ex-Defence and running communities would flock to help
put on this event. Wasn't quite to be , but the Canberra people and
stakeholders that did help were fantastic in their own way. I must also thank
John Harding for your help in motivating me to succeed with this race. Our
conversations drove me to making sure that it did succeed.
ANZAC Ultra V2 - The format was decided. There
would be three races. A long one of 435km, a medium one of 290km and a short
one of 145km. 3 loops, 2 loops and 1 loop of the Centenary trail with a 6 day,
4 days and 2 days. Set for the 6th to 12th April and would start/ finish from
the cycling criterion circuit area at Stromlo Forest Park.
It
was time to start dealing with the ACT Government and getting all the approvals
in place. That was an Ultra in itself.
Dealing with the ACT Government was interesting! I
initially thought that having an Ultrarunner as the appropriate Minister in
that area would open up doors in the permissions and sponsorship process. But
this wasn’t to be and I had to untangle the web of ACT Government burecracy
myself. In hindsight the appropriate Minister couldn’t be seen showing fear or
favour to one particular party.
New risk management plan was completed, insurance gained,
applications completed, many meetings and emails with one of the Legends of ACT
Government Event management and I still wasn’t sure if the process was gaining
any momentum . Add into this the sponsorship application for $20 000 was
submitted after the CBR 100 getting $ 50 000 and the burecracy started to
unravel into the uncut episodes of the "Hallowmen" more and more! For
the record our sponsorship proposal to the ACT Government was unsuccessful.
It was about this time that we had to organise ourselves
as a Business. A group of enthusiastic amateurs trying to organise all aspects
of a running race weren’t going to cut it into today's modern corporate world!
We ended up becoming a company limited by guarantee, appropriately called
" Helping Ultras LTD"
At the same time, I was organising my Committee to look
after the broad areas of the race. This included course management and route,
logistics, web site and social media, finding volunteers, finding sponsorship
and many other jobs, tasks that had to be completed.
June 2014 came around. The new look website and the
online entries were ready to go. Entries opened and very slowly! It took quite
a bit in the social media department for this to improve over the coming
months. We had a set number of entries in mind to make the projected budget
break even and it just wasn’t happening! Spending more time on the social media
side probably prevented me from doing too much on the operational side of the
race.
2015 came around and the committee did some quick
readjustment in the facts and figures. A new goal was set for the entries along
with a quick reassessment of the volunteers we had on board and the other
logistics needed to put on a race. Entries closed at the end of January. We
just had enough entries to put on the race, but we were way short in the
Volunteer department and we didn’t have the resources to be able to provide the
race as planned on a 145km circuit of Canberra.
Two/ three weeks of frantic email and phone call
discussion followed. What were we going to do and how are we going to do it ?
One of us came up with the idea of cutting the race to a smaller loop and
therefore reducing the amount of volunteers /logistics that we would need. This
was floated, discussed and agreed that with the smaller numbers, small volunteer
pool and not having the logistics we needed it was the only option available to
progress the ANZAC Ultra to its only agreeable conclusion.
Version 3 of the ANZAC Ultra was born and only about 5/6
weeks till the race was on. The new course wasn’t popular with everyone and we
had one well known female runner wanting her money back because of the course
change. Both sides sticking to their guns on the discussion which was only
resolved when she was able to sell her entry to a latecomer. Steve measured the
course which ended up slightly increasing the distance of each race by 15km,
10km and 5km. This was sold with the slogan " More distance at the same
price". Not really appreciated in some parts.
The next few weeks was a blur until the week before the race.
All aspects were quickly organised, problems overcome such as finding a new
First Aid provider three weeks before the race. St John's Ambulance were always
going to be the First Aid provider, but weren’t committing to actually doing
the race and weren’t committing that they would keep the price for under $ 10
000. Quick phone call to Friend and Mentor, Keith Hong and I was introduced to
State Medical services who got us out of a real bind. This wasn’t the first
time that Keith was a good help in providing solutions in the six months
leading up to the race! The 1kg Nutella is in the mail my Friend.
It was a week before the race when I was advised that I had to apply to the Arboretum for permission for the Run to go through that area. One seventeen page application and meeting later, the job was done and permission was gained. Had to put some road signs out , but that was the only trade-off.
It was about twelve months ago when the insurance was
sorted for the race through the Athletics Australia insurance provider "
Irun". The certificate of currency was set to expire on 1st April 2015. I
was advised by the relevant Athletics Australia official that it would be
renewed when the time came as a matter of course.
It got to 1st April and no Certificate of Currency had
been received from AA. Even with a couple of email reminders. I sent another
email, explaining that Easter was coming up and the race started on Easter
Monday , being 6th of April. It was a couple of hours later when I got a phone
call from the AA official in question, stating that he had just looked through
the initial paperwork and found several problems with what I had submitted. I was
to be frank very incredulous with this and a full blown argument was soon in
progress over the phone.
After things settled down , a phone meeting was arranged
that afternoon, between ourselves and one of the AA Managers. More questions
were fired and an agreement was reached. The only major change was that all
runners will have a headtorch and safety vest. This was easily accepted. The
other AA stipulations were penned as suggestions, so were easy for me to risk
manage. New Insurance Certificate of Currency was received at 4.10pm on Easter
Thursday. The final permission from ACT Roads was received at 4.30pm after
quick confirmation via email. The race was ready to go......Almost.
Easter Saturday came around and the emails from AA hadn’t
quite finished. I received an email from the AA Official in question saying
that he had a sleepless night and he thinks that the runners should stop every
night at 11pm and start again at 5am in the morning. A few different thoughts
went through my mind then including the vision of 100 plus runners chasing me
down Cotter Road and beating me half to death! Alzheimer’s then kicked in and I
promptly forgot about the email in question for the next 48 hours. We had a
race to run!
...
Race week Highlights and Lowlights:
In no particular order here are my highlights
of the week.
1. The minor climatic event that tried to
engulf the event in the first two days.
2. Catching up with Old Friends and making new
ones.
3. Entering Zombie mode by about the
Wednesday.
4. My fantastic Wife, Belinda being able to
perform some kind of magic and able to find the Volunteers we needed to be able
to function as a race,
5. The GREAT clinical running performances by
Sam Weir, Kevin Heaton, Martin Fryer and Shaun Mulholland.
6.
GREAT crewing and GREAT work by the Volunteers.
7. Meeting as many as I could of the GREAT
Legacy fundraisers competing in the race and ,meeting Canberra Legacy members
who helped when they could.
8. Reading the online facebook updates and
seeing the effect that the race was having on some who were truly being the
ANZAC spirit
9. Seeing the LEGACY fundraising total growing
past $ 77 000
10. Walking with Ben, Ian and David at the
finish of their races.
11. Presenting Finisher Medals to as many
runners as I could.
12. Witnessing Gavin walk 28kms in absolute
agony to bring up his 300kms before withdrawing.
13. All of my family and extended family
giving their time freely to Volunteer and help the race.
14. Admiral Griggs attending the race on the
friday morning to help start the 150km.
15.
Seeing one of my Ex-RAAF Friends, Bruce enter a team in the Relay and immerse
themselves so well into the experience.
16.
Having the Leaders run past me on Gunbarrel Hill at the Arboretum on the first
day. This included Peter Thompson running with his Australia flag.
There are probably quite a few other
highlights and lowlights from the race, but most of all I should Thank everyone
that was involved in the race in any shape or form. Runners, Committee, Crews,
Volunteers, Sponsors. You all did a fantastic job and all I can reiterate is
Thankyou . We have honoured the ANZACS and have raised a goof sum of money for
Legacy. Job done!
This
is definitely it for me in the Race Directing department. Time to get some more
long walks, runs done for myself and perhaps one day, I will be able to fulfil
my competing dream of completing a Six Day race and still be standing at the
end.
Regards
Phil
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