VMA 30+ Teams Challenge

What a busy weekend for our Casey Cardinia 30+ Masters.

Some of our members enjoyed a run in the masses at the Sydney Marathon, the latest major in the world marathon series.

A smaller group did uphold the club flag at the winter inter-challenge at Doncaster. The inter-challenge event is a points event between the Victorian master clubs. There are two divisions; the Caesy team starting in division B against 13 other clubs. Due to the fact that there were so many events on at the same time the team with eight starters was smaller as the previous year’s. Our friends Kuldeep, Steve and Effie were missed, as they had to cancel on short notice.

So, how does challenge work? In a nutshell it is about points. Every starter gets points for the club they are registered for. How many points each runner can earn depends on the total number of starters in the event and the age group they are in.

The first race was a 60m sprint however there was no starter from our team. It was hardly surprising that we started at the last place in our division. This changed with event no. 3, the 600m female, in which Tracey and Megan competed. Next up was David in the 600m male. Crossing the finish line he looked a bit worried as many runners finished in front of him. We told him not to take it too serious as he had to run in a combined race against a lot younger guys. After checking the results he started to smile, as he was even faster than the time he put down at the registration.

As Casey continued to enter the competition we steadily climbed the ladder. Everyone gave their best and can certainly be proud of their individual results. Some of us achieved a new personal best and a heigh age grading shows for many of us how they improved their fitness over the last 12 months.

Andrew Cutting’s 1 mile run in 5:18.92 earned him a whopping 77.84%. But what a surprise in both race walking events where Hsein recorded a super result finishing the 800m in 4:45.23 (75.78%) and the 1600m in 9:58.80 (75.71%). Coming in under 10 minutes is a brilliant result she can be truly proud of.

Hsein calling it a day and going home to visit her mum was short lived as our coach found out the the girls team needed to have her back in the race to be able to compete. In true team spirit she came back and ran in the medley. Knowing Hsein, she would never let the team down. Finishing third place was the reward for the women’s team with Hsein, Tracy, Megan and Carolyn.

The final event for us was the male 180+ medley relay. Reaching fifth place in an even with eight teams was quite a good result considering that the team combined age was 236, just missing the 240+ age medley relay event.

The final standings was a fifth place in the division B, out of 14 clubs. A big Thank you to our small team and for everyone’s big effort.