We have been blessed with a very mild winter in the last month or so. Our members have certainly been taking advantage of this, coming to Sunday training in great numbers — fantastic! We decided that the season called for a hot drink when everyone had finished running and walking, and have begun providing tea and coffee. This idea has proved its worth. It seems that having warm beverages waiting after Sunday training is not only providing heat and hydration, but is also proving to be a catalyst for socialising, with most people hanging around for a chat after training. A great way to get to know more about those who attend Achilles Sunday exercise sessions.

See you on Sunday for some exercise and a cuppa!

Ellis

Readers will recall that Nick Gleeson was part of Senator John Faulkner’s 2010 Melbourne Trailwalker team. The Trailwalker is a gruelling 100-kilometre race through rugged bushland.

Senator Faulkner is a veteran of 8 Trailwalkers, and his 2011 team included Achilles Club member Ben Phillips. Ben had met Senator Faulkner when the 2010 team was training on a section of the Great North Walk in Sydney.

Before the start of the April event, Senator Faulkner and Ben were interviewed on ABC Radio. You can access the  ABC link here.

A good description of the event was contained in Senator Faulkner’s Adjournment speech to the Senate on June 20^th. The attached link will take you to a transcript of the speech. It is well worth reading, as it describes the course and Ben’s reaction on completing the event 35 hours after he had started.

This extract gives a good illustration of the toughness of the course:

[The speech to the Senate also contained a reference to Achilles stalwart Nick Gleeson. It’s hard to imagine other circumstances in which two Achilles members would appear in Hansard on the same day!]

In recognising Ben’s great achievement, we must pay tribute to Senator Faulkner. His eight Trailwalker teams have raised $215,000 to help some of the world’s most disadvantaged people.

The City to Surf is one of our key events of the year. Among the disabled athletes that will be wearing the Achilles colours in 2011 will be a sight-impaired Paralympian Gold Medallist, and totally blind members who have climbed Kilimanjaro, walked the Kokoda Track, been to Everest Base Camp and run several marathons.

At the other end of the experience-scale, we will have blind walkers who will be entering for the first time but who are no less excited.

On Sunday August 14^th, we will have disabled competitors whose finishing times will range from about 70 minutes to two hours. Their times might be widely different but they will share the common bond that is Achilles.

The able-bodied guides are also an eclectic group, ranging literally from barrister to barista*.” One of them is one of the City to Surf “Legends”, John Simon, who has completed all C2S events since its inception. He will be fronting up again this year and will be walking with his blind wife, Helen, who was featured in the October 2010 Achilles Heel. Not far behind John is long-time member Colin Bradford, who has done all but two City to Surf races.

[*We also have a trainee barista – See later item titled, “Coffee on the Run”]

Last years City to Surf team

In April, Achilles entered a team in the Age Group section of the ITU World Championship in Sydney. The Age Group competitors got to start at 0600, with the plan being that they would have dragged their stiff and sore bodies off the course by the time the elites competed later in the day.

 Our team was unusually large, with 8 team members distributed over the three legs. The reason: the official team of 3 were blind. Charlie McConnell was swimming the 1.5K first leg. Charlie had never swum further than 1K before, and he was guided through the crowded and tricky “M”-shaped course by Michael Levy. This was the first time that Charlie and Michael had swum together and they had to battle through the noisy, crowded and bruising frenzy that is an inherent part of the swimming leg. They received deserved plaudits when they emerged from the water.

 Paralympian gold-medallist Lindy Hou was our cyclist and she shared a tandem bike with guide Paul Archer. Lindy and Paul clocked the 3^rd-fastest cycling leg in the team competition (46 riders)

Our sight-impaired runner was visiting student, Kamilla Ryding*, from Denmark. It was Kamilla’s first 10K race but she had trained hard for the event, running sub-50 minutes in training. Because the course was narrow with plenty of twists and turns, we decided on 3 guides for Kamilla. Eamonn Kennihan was tethered to Kamilla’s wrist, Ellis Janks (President of the Achilles Club) ran slightly ahead, clearing a path through the drink stops and past the runners that we were overtaking. Brian O’Dea ran slightly behind Kamilla and Eamonn, warning them of faster runners overtaking us and steering these runners safely past Kamilla.

 The team beat its 3-hour target by 10 minutes. In doing so, they came 29th out of 47 teams, beating several all-male teams in the process. It was the only “disabled” team in the race.

The Achilles team celebrated the event by sitting in a kerb-side café, replacing lost carbohydrates with lots of unhealthy pastries and watching the start of the traffic jam that hogged most of the following day’s headlines.

[*Kamilla was a regular and popular attendee at the Achilles Sunday sessions during her stay in Sydney. She has now returned to Europe and we wish here every success in her studies and future career. ]

 Paul and Lindy head out

Michael and Charlie prepare for the swim.

Winners!

On Saturday 28^th of May, two Achilles members had roles in Giselle Mesnage’s play, “The Window”. The play was based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which dealt with illusions, perception and reality. The setting had been updated to the fictional radio station, Radio Cave.

The subject was made doubly poignant because each of the seven-member cast is visually impaired. Achilles members Nidhi Shekaran and Ben Phillips were part of the cast.

Nidhi explained her role as “that of a soft spoken naive French girl who gets dumped by the DJ and then learns about how men might behave in relationships, and she, therefore, had to become strong.”

The DJ in question was played by Ben. In the role, he “treats women with little or no respect but gradually learns the right way to treat women.”

Nidhi mentioned by the time the production was over, she found herself responding to off-stage questions in the voice of her stage character. So, don’t be surprised if you greet Nidhi at Achilles and she responds in a lilting French accent.

On the other hand, do warn us if Ben reverts to the character of the dastardly DJ.

In recent weeks, the Sunday morning training sessions have been wintry affairs. Although the lashing rains of May and early June have receded, the sunnier Sunday mornings have an entry fee of bitingly cold temperatures.

The ever-generous Ellis Janks has warmed hearts and hands with copious supplies of tea and coffee as the runners and walkers return. [Less hardy souls have pleaded for the beverages to be poured at the beginning, or instead, of the sessions.]

As is well known, Achilles does not have any facilities and Ellis has to play barista on the steps of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Thus the transporting and setting up of the paraphernalia is not an easy task. His car is a trusty Hyundai Sportswagon, but it is increasingly taking on the characteristics of a Romani vardo.  It is now almost constantly full of T-shirts, caps, banners, membership forms, tea, coffee, milk, sugar and hot water. The kitchen sink is, no doubt, in there somewhere.

Ellis and his customers!

In December 2011, the Achilles Running Club will be 15 years old. To mark the occasion, we will be holding celebratory late breakfast in November. We will be circulating the details in the near future. In the meantime, we are seeking volunteers to help us organise the event.

We have a particular need for a person skilled in the manipulation of a database (Access or Excel) and the despatch of email invitations from that database.

If you are such a person, or know of such a person, please contact us at info@achilles-sydney.org.au

Membership renewals were due on July 1^st. Please do renew your membership and give us your details for the update of our database. Do note that we do not give out the personal details of our members to any third party. Details are kept strictly within the Achilles database and used only for Achilles business. Also, we do encourage people to join Achilles as members. The bigger our membership, the more weight we carry and the more effectively we can attract attention in the media and acquire Club sponsors. Applying for grants is also easier when we have a greater membership base.

Anyone who joined the Club this year (i.e. after we resumed training in February) is financial until June 2012.

We have been given new parking permits for Sunday morning training. You can pick one up on a Sunday. Please make sure to place your permit (old one if you do not yet have a new one – it should still work) on your car dashboard. If anyone gets a parking fine, we will not be able to have it cancelled.

A new Sunday training volunteer roster is presently being compiled. If you have not been on the roster but wish to be, please let us know at info@achilles-sydney.org.au. You can view the roster on the Achilles website.