Herb Elliott

Boxing Day Run with Geoff Holmes

I needed to get away from from Roo+Lake and somewhat forced a reluctant "Comeback Kid" to go for a run with me.
We ran from Geoff's new house - well more like a Mansion, I arrived outside, looked up at the vast expanse of the roof line and was thinking one of Saddam Hussein's Palaces !
I phoned to check I had the right place.
In the UK only seriously rich people could ever aspire to live in such opulent grandeur - Australia (and Queensland in particular) lends itself to economical construction techniques and land prices which mean that hardworking folk can afford these monsters! Perhaps it helps if you only have one child!.
The center piece of Geoff and Nicole's home is a huge 'void', a double height, open plan part of the ground floor with a galleried landing above. Simply sensational.
Anyhow Geoff has been so busy with the builders and buying the materials for the house over the last couple of months that training has taken a back seat. So his fitness wasn't the best. I had to change vests as otherwise we'd have looked like a right couple running in the same fluorescent yellow and orange vests!

We headed off down through Scarborough's 'canal estates' to the seafront path at Scarborough and along for a few K. Geoff rested from 3K and I picked him back up at 7K. We ran 11m56 for the last 3K. Geoff was somewhat mortified at this time as he was using it as a benchmark for his avowed ambition;
"2008 sub 10min 3000m", It's in the public domain now mate so you gotta do it! Geoff's PB is about 10m20.
All up I ran just under 11KM in about 44mins.

To me one of the funniest film clips of all time:




As this blog is supposed to be about running I thought I'd include this clip of an ABSOLUTE LEGEND of distance running; The incomparable Herb Elliot - what I love about this clip is it shows Herb to be a real Ozzy Bloke as well as seeing the awesome talent and majesty of his running action. World Record performance in an Olympic Final you don't see that very often these days!
One of these days I'll write about my adoration for his coach Percy Cerrutty his theories on life and training techniques.