Remote, couch perfect way to celebrate win
HOW do you celebrate a blistering run to win the Gold Coast 50 Running Festival?
“I’ve just been watching Netflix, that’s about it,” Rob Clarke laughed last night.
The 42-year-old won the 50km race that is run between Broadbeach and Coolangatta earlier in the day with a time of 3:17:34, a minute and 18 seconds ahead of nearest rival Anderson Moquiuti.
“It went to plan,” Clarke said. “I went out pretty quick and then just held a steady pace all the way back.”
Clarke placed third in the 30km race last year but decided to step up to the main event this time around.
“I had done it a few years ago but I had always sort of put it off just because you’re local, you know the route. But I thought I would have another go this year,” he said, adding his next run will likely be the 42km distance at the Gold Coast Marathon in July.
The women’s field proved a close two-horse race, with Jane Fardell (3:50:58) leading home Karen Pienaar by 20 seconds.
Peter Bracken and Kerri Hodge comfortably took out the 30km men’s and women’s divisions, respectively.
Race director Shane Smith was pleased to see a steep spike in the number of participants.
“We ended up having almost 2000 competitors start the race,” he said, noting there had been about 1000 last year.
“The main event was the 50km race and we had 450 people do that … not a lot of 50km races get those sort of numbers. The race is so unique because you get to run along the ocean pathway.”