King & Queen of the Mountain

History

Inaugural run 10th August 1969

The first Mt Tassie King of the Mountain run was scheduled to be run in September 1968, but for some reason did not take place, neither did the 1970 race.

An article in the Journal dated 14th Oct 1971 stated —-the gruelling 20 mile course – only the “second” time the race had been run.  We know it was run in 1969 from another Journal newspaper article 14th August 1969.  Therefore, these articles confirm that it was not run in 1968 or 1970 and that the first Mt Tassie King of the Mountain run must have been in 1969.

(Refer to Section 6 – Articles to view both scanned copies of the Journal 14^th August 1969 and the 14th Oct 1971).

A statement from G Duffell reinforces this conclusion: “When I first heard about the race (likely 71) it was being reintroduced.  “We used to …”I had the impression it might have been run more than once before.  Also no results could be found for 1968 or 1970, plus on the day it was scheduled in 1968, results in the local paper for the Geoff Watt Half Marathon showed that many Traralgon Harriers had run this event.

Course

It appears from the various newspaper articles that the Traralgon Harriers wanted a very hard long distance run to start in the middle of Traralgon being the G.P.O.  Key criteria for the course must have been – a local tough long distance mountain course.   Running to Mt Tassie from the G.P.O would have ticked all the boxes being close to 20 mile (around 30km) a gruelling climb from 10 km onwards and with a traditional date of September runners would have to run in some very poor conditions cold/windy/snow, but weather could also be quite warm

The first few years of the King and Queen of the Mountain was actually longer in distance.  The race started in front of the Franklin St Post Office (G.P.O), left into Seymour Street, across the Creek and out to Shakespeare Street, then along the old creek road not the current road out toward Loy Yang, distance was close to 31k.

Up until 1986 the race was run on a longer course from the Post Office (G.P.O) until the race distance was reduced to 29.1km when the start was changed to outside the old Shakespeare Street Clubrooms adjacent the Traralgon Creek.  Over the years distances became progressively shorter with the road realignments.

In the last few years (starting 2013) the race has been moved off the main Mount Tassie road for safety reasons.

Big Jim Timmer-Arends finishing Mt Tassie King and Queen of the Mountain run:

Jim Timmer-Arends Traralgon Harriers Mt Tassie Foot Race

Results

Winners Mount Tassie King and Queen of the Mountain.

For complete results refer to APPENDIX 3.

 All the results have been verified via Newspaper Articles (Journal / Express) or via the Harriers Newsletters.

 Refer to Section 6 Newspaper Articles – In the Journal newspaper 25^th September 1975 it was stated that “Previous winners of this race have been Martin Thompson three times, John Bermingham and John Shanahan once”, but also stated was that “John Shanahan time of 2hrs 1 min was the previous record.“  This is a little confusing as there is no mention of Paul O’Hare’s win in 1972 (confirmed by G Duffell).

There being only 5 races previous to 1975 not 6 as indicated by the number of winners stated above (Martin Thompson three times, John Bermingham, John Shanahan and Paul O’Hare once), therefore Martin must have only won twice previous to 1975.

As there was no race in 1968 or 1970 (refer to Race History above) and as 1973 is the only year where results could not be found you can conclude that John Shanahan must have been the 1973 winner.

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