Four For A Fun Run, And Making It Stick
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday August 12, 1994
They have Sydney's most impressive collections of bumper stickers.
But when you've truly Made It, Done It, Finished, Got There, City to Surfed, and performed every other sloganist's rite of passage from CBD to Bondi on an August Sunday for the past 24 years, you don't have to brag.
Of 538,764 City to Surf entrants since 1971, only 64 have run in every race since 1971. The Herald met four of them yesterday, and as athletic elites go, they're a curious mob. Their training regimes are erratic or non-existent, they eat whatever's going, and some wouldn't knock back an offer of sex the night before the race.
Wayne Heffernan, 45, runs daily but admits his pre-race breakfast consists of eating "whatever happens to be in the cupboard", which usually turns out to be toast and honey.
He has never consciously experimented with the effects of pre-race sex.
"I don't say to my wife, 'Dear, I've got a race tomorrow, let's go to bed'. If it happens, it happens."
Kerry Heinecke, 53, ran the race one year with an arm strapped to his side after stripping ligaments a month before the race.
And Paul Summerhays, 39, was not stopped by a March back operation, leaving him in bed until July, a few years ago. He still ran that August.
"I did it in 113 minutes that year, my worst time," he says ruefully, still nursing a raw mental scar.
Alan Farrell, 50, can also remember his slowest time, but he has an explanation - the race was longer back then.
For these runners, finishing the City to Surf is a point of almost obsessive concern. Losing a job, a house, a pet - mere trifles compared with missing the race.
Summerhays typifies the attitude - "I have a commitment from some people to push me in a wheelchair if something goes wrong," he says.
More than 24 bumper stickers could ever say.
ALAN FARRELL, 50.
Weight: 74kg
Height: 170cm
Shoe: Size 9 Brooks
Pre-Race Meal: Nothing. "The lighter you are, the better."
Sex Before Race?: "It doesn't make too much difference. It's the wining and dining that knocks you around."
Toughest Part of Course: The start
Best Time: 50:06
Worst Time: "59-ish"
KERRY HEINECKE, 53.
Weight: 70kg
Height: 175cm
Shoe: Size 9 Brooks
Pre-Race Meal: Cereal, toast "very early", water before start
Sex Before Race?: "I have never taken that into consideration."
Toughest Part of Course: First 400m to the Kings Cross Tunnel
Best time: 48:36
Worst time: "Around 75"
PAUL SUMMERHAYS, 39.
Weight: 79kg
Height: 167cm
Shoe: Size 9 1/2 New Balance
Pre-Race Meal: "A couple of glucose lollies and water."
Sex Before Race?: "I don't give it a second thought."
Toughest Part of Course: Downhill from Dover Heights to Bondi
Best time: 61 minutes
Worst time: "About 113"
WAYNE HEFFERNAN, 45.
Weight: 70kg
Height: 168cm
Shoe: Size 8 Brooks
Pre-Race Meal: Toast with honey, water
Sex Before Race?: "If it happens, it happens."
Toughest Part of Course: Dover Heights
Best time: 49:45
Worst time: "About 84"
© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald
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