The Dragon Runner

St George District Athletic Club Merit Award

9 Jun 2018

At the club's Annual General Meeting I was honoured to be presented a Merit Award by Alan Staples, a Life Member of the club. In presenting this award the Annual Report included the following words.

A long term and long distance member, joining the club in 1985. He took on the webmaster role in 2007 and over 10 years spent countless hours adding Annual Reports to the archives and keeping the weekly results and club records up to date, as well as allowing us to post messages to members. Michael continually develops ideas on how to make the website meet the needs of members. Michael was also the handicapper for six years. It's no surprise that Michael pushes himself in his running as much as his contributions to the club. Despite some bad luck with injuries, he is an enthusiastic athlete and we wish him many healthy seasons to come.

Alan Staples first joined the club in October 1960 & was noted as a passionate ultra distance runner. Other members have often suggested that he used marathons for his warm up before settling down to business. Alan has completed 8x 48-hour races with a best result of 210.166km & 19x 24-hour races with a best result of 171.600km. He has a marathon pb of 2:38:27 & an 800m pb of 2:11.0 proving he also had plenty of speed in his legs. He has been a great help to me for many years, providing many of the history items such as annual reports, meeting minutes & race results for the St George Club website. He has been supportive of my attempts to run longer events in recent years & has given me a lot of advice & insight. He is a true gentleman & a great role model for any aspiring long distance runner.

I am the 26th person to be honoured with a Merit Award since it was introduced in 1975.