Wellington athletes make new marks in Melbourne Marathon Festival
On Sunday 12 October three excellent performances were achieved by Wellington athletes at the Nike Melbourne Marathon and Half Marathon Festival, which was hosted from the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground. In the Marathon Olympic club athlete Ingrid Cree ran a personal best time of 2:42:48 for 8th place overall in the Women’s marathon. This is excellent performance for the Masters Women 40+ category. Ingrid stated “It was a fantastic experience in Melbourne with great crowds and a magic feeling finishing with a PB in the MCG.”
In the Half Marathon Toby Gualter also from the Olympic club continued his excellent run of form clocking 1:03 min:22 sec also for a personal best clocking in ahead of some big name Australian distance runners like Brett Robinson, Stewart McSweyn and Ryan Gregson. Toby reiterated that ” it was a great event over there. I managed to beat a lot of top guys, which has given me a lot of confidence heading into more international racing and future opportunities.”
Nathan Tse former WHAC club athlete who recently moved to work in Melbourne Australia also clocked a personal best half marathon with 1:04:55 finishing in 7th place. The Nike Melbourne Marathon festival saw 50,000 total participants registered from across Australia and around the world, doing their part to help the event become renowned as the World’s Most Encouraging Festivals and cross the finish line at the iconic MCG on Sunday.
