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Sunday 24 June 2018

ANZAC Ultra 2015 - Race Director Report


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!
...
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.
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 fufil my competing dream of completing a Six Day race and still be standing at the end.
Regards
Phil
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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