Frankston to Portsea 2024

Frankston to Portsea 55km Run 55km/34 miles

Sunday 14th April 2024

1.	Tom Dade	4:23:36
2.	Bryan Lim	4:28:45
3.	Caleb Ha	4:49:55
4.	Andrew Moldrich	4:53:52
5.	Oliver Maass	4:55:42
6.	Miah Noble [F]	5:01:46
7.	Martine Nield [F]	5:03:33
8.	Heike Godwin [F]	5:04:53
9.	Greg Plier	5:09:39
10.	Bec Howe [F]	5:10:03
11.	Baoping Zhang	5:10:39
12.	Paul Walravens	5:12:55
13.	Andrew Fero-Kovassy	5:13:51
14.	Rohan Day	5:15:37
15.	Jonathan Ennis-King	5:21:59
16.	Joachim Dierckens	5:27:39
17.	David Spencer	5:29:47
18.	Jeffery Wang	5:33:26
19.	Brett Tilley	5:35:38
20.	Jody Daff [F]	5:37:27
21.	Peter Mitchell	5:38:51
22.	Chris Clark	5:40:41
23.	Chris Pittock	5:45:44
24.	Michael Wang	5:50:41
25.	Daniel Bull	5:55:51
26.	Maria Tskouris [F]	6:00:05
26.	Nikki Wynd [F]	6:00:05
26.	John Gullifer	6:00:05
29.	David Talamelli	6:08:32
30.	Yee-Vien Ng [F]	6:13:42
31.	Jackie Goudy [F]	6:22:30
32.	Gavin Ma	6:26:44
33.	Matt Matin	6:28:40
34.	Sean Abrera	6:49:42
35.	Paul Cullen	7:05:39
36.	Glenn Thomas	7:22:56
37.	Frank Palermo	7:22:58

Tuan Le 50km
Karen Champion [F] 42km
Mark Barger 35km
Aidan Rich 34km

Report by Kevin Cassidy

Accentuating the fact that I’m moving well into my 60s, a bit of radio dial twirling had me settling on Magic 1278 as I motored towards Frankston in the early morning darkness. Old fashioned, I know but I definitely enjoyed the dulcet tones of Neil Diamond and Perry Como as I reflected upon a phone call a week earlier from Neil Padley. As a teenager training at Percy Cerutty’s camp in 1965, Neil was challenged to run Frankston to Portsea under five hours.

“On mainly unmade roads and spending sixpence on a drink in Rosebud, I staggered home in 5:02”, he lamented.

“Percy wasn’t impressed and gave me a hell of a serve”

“The run from Frankston was often used as punishment for any athletes that snuck out to Tom Cats Nightclub in Sorrento”, laughed Neil

Courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology, 41 runners lapped up ideal conditions as they charged off in high spirits bound for Portsea. A couple of notable absentees were Paul Spencer and Jon Lim. In Jon’s case, it spared me disturbing the local search and rescue squad!

Exploding out of the blocks swifter than Usain Bolt was the bare chested Tom Dade who rapidly established a colossal lead. Tom is one of our nation’s premier endurance athletes. A google search will impress you no end.

So astonishingly speedy was Tom, that I scarcely got to see anyone else. I drove hastily to the roundabout just beyond the 20km point to ensure no one undertook an incorrect turn. At this stage, Tom had established a 25 minute lead over the second placed Bryan Lim!

Needing to remain here until the final runner came through, I was genuinely stressing at the prospect of missing Tom’s finish! The bonus, however, was getting to see everyone come through. Leading the women was 19 year old Miah Noble. Aidan Rich was looking relaxed and Bec Howe, as always, had that engaging smile and positive disposition. Greg Plier was also moving well considering he’d knocked out a marathon the previous day.

Just when I was deliberating over the necessity to move on, a familiar dark red car appeared. Yes, Joanna Maidment and her cow bell had arrived to offer appropriate and somewhat rowdy encouragement. Joanna’s presence enabled me to zoom off in search of the lightning quick Tom.

Urgently needing to refuel, I dashed into the Shell servo where the attendant had an adams apple the size of a champagne cork and was chewing a bread roll with his mouth wide open in the noisiest manner possible as I hurried in to pay.

It may be a reflection on my driving habits, but as seems to happen every year, I invariably get lumbered behind a slow witted driver doing 20kph under the limit on the single laned highway!!

In this instance, it was a chubby faced youngster with one of those man bun hairstyles holding up the entire line of traffic in his tiny white Toyota. Still on a mission to locate Tom, steam was coming out my ears. Approaching Rosebud, I quickly grasped the fleeting opportunity to overtake the irksome driver and flicked him a contemptuous glance, which of course achieved nothing.

Tom appeared in my sights near Rye with a tad over 13km to go and I relaxed knowing I now had time up my sleeve. I then made a less than taxing decision to scurry into the local Coles for a large bottle of diet coke only to be confronted with a row of self-serve check outs comprising of a form of technology that totally escapes me. Being adventurous, I made a sloppy and hurried attempt to use one of the wretched machines. Of course I made a complete mess of it and alarm bells were quickly ringing in the most annoying manner possible. You’d have thought I was robbing a bank…..then again, isn’t it usually the banks robbing us? But that’s another story. An eager and helpful young staff member with unimaginable green hair and very tiny bright shoes rapidly came to my rescue.

 “Is it possible to go through a normal checkout and pay cash in the traditional fashion”, I asked quizzically.

Sensing my inability to adapt to the robotic nature of the modern world, she cheerily obliged and I was on my way after thanking her appreciatively.

Parking my ute purposefully at the finish outside the Point Nepean National Park, I unpacked an array of prizes. On offer was an esky full of cold drinks, medals for the first three males and females, a stock of large upmarket blocks of chocolate, a few novelties and a copy of the excellent Percy Cerutty book “Why Die’ for the first across the line. Given there is no entry fee, such things wouldn’t have been possible without some generous donations. Special thanks and a huge shout out to Justin Jeffery, Rohan Day, Michael Eury, Aidan Rich, Gautam Pandey and the Casey Cardinia Masters Athletic Club.

Quietly awaiting the runners arrival, the ambience was suddenly broken by the sound of a raging argument emitting from an approaching vehicle. Or more to the point, one extremely irate female voice was resonating around the entire area from the passenger side window of an ageing Mitsubishi van.

 “You’ve got no f*****g idea at all, have you Trevor?

Presumably, Trevor was the sad faced driver with the flat top haircut that looked like a miniature helipad. He turned and drove back down Point Nepean Road without so much as a murmur while that abominable and detestable screeching female voice echoed through the trees. Throughout it all, I and anyone else within a 5km radius, figured that the unfortunate Trevor, amongst other crimes, had taken a wrong turn. In all sincerity, I hope Trevor finds happiness via a good divorce lawyer. Whoops, I seem to have digressed somewhat.

Soon after, Tom came in to view having slowed in the final stages for a 4:23:36 finish. Byan Lim narrowed the gap to five minute in taking second with Caleb Ha third. Just a few short minutes separated Miah Noble, Martine Nield and Heike Godwin for the women’s placings.

From there, the hordes began rolling in. Andrew Moldrich looked happy with his efforts, Bec Howe was smiling all the way to the end and the contingent from the Australian-Chinese Runners Group in their distinctive orange tops all finished with aplomb upon which they set up a highly intricate picnic lunch. They undoubtedly do things in style. Jonathan Ennis-King recorded his sixth finish to join the most prolific runners list while Rohan Day, resplendent in his board shorts, knocked out his seventh.

David Spencer was buzzing after his 11^th finish. Only Peter Gray has spent more time on this course with 20 runs under his belt.

Matt Matin stormed home comfortably, enjoyed a short break then decided to run the extra 5km down to the point!

Immediately upon finishing, Sean Abrera was seeking advice about everything ultra related. Young and eager to learn, Sean is one to watch in future. The day’s activities concluded when Frank Palermo, in his Captain America outfit, stopped the clock in 7:22:58. Not having had the best of days, he decided against turning around for his usual 110km round trip.

And with that, I packed up and headed home with haste to dish up dinner for a very demanding cat.

We do it all again on April 6 next year. Be there.