Continuing a tradition, we have graphed the finishers of all Melbourne Marathons, 1978 to 2015.
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This isn’t the clearest graph ever, but it might help to know that point 78 represents 1978 when there were 1947 finishers, 4.1% of whom were female, and point 14 represents 2014 when there were 6440 finishers, 30.7% of whom were female.
Recent years have seen a gradual increase in the percentage of female finishers, but the 2015 percentage (30.48) was a little …
by Spartan We’ve looked at this subject before, the steadily increasing proportion of female finishers in the Melbourne Marathon from 1978 to 2012. The trend continued in 2013 and 2014, as shown below:
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This isn’t the clearest graph ever, but it might help to know that point 78 represents 1978 when there were 1947 finishers, 4.1% of whom were female, and point 14 represents 2014 when there were 6440 finishers, 30.7% of whom were female.
by Spartan Four kilometres into this morning’s planned 30 kilometre run, I lost all energy and felt like I’d hit the wall. The pace I could maintain was drastically reduced, and slight undulations became mountains.
I believe that the cause was hypoglyc(a)emia – low blood sugar. I’ve experienced similar symptoms in the past after drinking Sprite or Fanta immediately before a run. The body’s insulin response to the influx of sugar is complicated by exercise. This morning I had my usual pre …
by Spartan A while ago we looked at the steadily increasing proportion of female finishers in the Melbourne Marathon from 1978 to 2012. The trend continued in 2013, as shown below:
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This isn’t the clearest graph ever, but it might help to know that point 1 represents 1978 when there were 1947 finishers, 4.1% of whom were female, and point 36 represents 2013 when there were 6848 finishers, 29.4% of whom were female.
by Spartan It has been noticeable that in recent years an increasing number of women are completing the Melbourne Marathon, but I was surprised to read that 55% of the 11,000 half marathon entrants are women. This lead me plough through some result books and spreadsheets to see the numbers for the full marathon.
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In 1978 there were 1947 finishers but no breakdown by sex. There were 123 female entrants, but the real number of finishers is unclear. The results book …
by Spartan Everyone knows two things about this book:
– it was a large part of the running boom in the late 1970s and among other benefits of running, made the claim that anyone who trained properly for a marathon was protected from heart disease;
– James Fixx died of a heart attack at a comparatively young age.
It was published in 1977 in the United States, and my copy was printed (in Fitzroy) September 1978, the fourth reprint in 2 months. …
by Spartan Those who have been following the sporadic reports on my training might remember that the aim was to run faster than last year, and to break 5 hours. Neither goal was achieved as my time was three minutes slower than in 2011. The only reason I’m smiling in the photograph is that I finished.
I have no excuses as there were no injuries and no illness, not even a cold during the preparation. And who could complain about the weather? …
by Spartan Chris Muirden’s history of the Melbourne Marathon is now available for pre-order.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Chris and can’t wait to get the completed book. He has interviewed a wide range of people and was able to recount some fascinating stories.He also has access to hundreds of photographs, most of which have never been seen by the public. John Dean, immediate past president of the Spartans, has been responsible for the rescue of the photographs.
There have …
by Spartan We have just added a new page which lists name and number of every Melbourne Marathon Spartan. This has been extracted from our database.
A Spartans database was first developed in 1987/8 when the club was formed. Written in Clipper, it was updated by John Raskas who was then Club Secretary. Some years later, it was changed to an Access system, I think in the time of Peter Feldman. A few years ago it was decided that a third generation …
by Spartan We recently received an enquiry from Greg Lewison who is half way to becoming a Spartan, and thought he had a chance of becoming the oldest member to run ten consecutive Melbourne Marathons. Cath Bombardieri, who is part way through updating our database with all the runs completed by each of our members, conducted a search. The runner data is not complete, and we don’t have date of birth information for everyone, but she did manage to find two who …
by Spartan