Great marathon win for Good

Press, 23 October 1978, Page 20

Great marathon win for Good

The Montreal Olympics marathon nominee, Tony Good, of the New Brighton club, reaffirmed his international marathon status when he easily beat a topclass field to win the Eclipse Fountain City marathon at Hamilton on Saturday, in a field of 880. His winning time of 2h 16min 20s, was almost Imin faster than the time which gained him Olympic nomination, and showed that his troublesome knee injury had been overcome. Speaking to his father, Mr Noel Good, yesterday, Tony said the blustery conditions were “terrible, just about as bad as a Canterbury nor’wester.” Nevertheless, Good broke

away from the field at about 25km and never looked distressed. He finished full of running and smiling.. Next to Tony Good’s magnificent win, probably the most notable performance was that of Arthur Lydiard, recently described by “Runner’s World” as the greatest athletic coach, who won the over 60 prize in the remarkable time of 2h 58min 58s. This was only lOmin slower than Arthur Lydiard’s winning time in a New Zealand marathon more than 10 years before. The oldest finisher was Jim Jamieson, who set a New Zealand record at the age of 69 of 4h 16min. The cardiologist at the Waikato Hospital. Dr Hugo

Friedlander, has over the last year set up a marathon clinic, which includes the rehabilitation of coronary patients by long-distance training. Dr Friedlander set a good example to his patients by setting a personal best time, at the age of 42, of '3h Imin 47s — an improvement of 20min on his last marathon last year. A total of 66 runners out of 70 from his marathon clinic completed the distance on Saturday. Among the marathon-clin-ic finishers was a heart patient. According to Mr Galloway, he had a severe coronary attack at the age of 54. After seven months training under Dr Friedlander, he finished the mara-

thon on Saturday in 4h ; smin. The run was also a record for the number of women, and 39 out of 56 finished. Of these, the oldest was Mrs Margaret Spiers, who finished not far behind her husband, Ron. They were aged 53 and 55, and Ron set a record for having finished 50 marathons, after passing the veteran category. According to the race organiser, Andy Galloway, the over-all standard was the highest set in a marathon in New Zealand — 210 finished under three hours, out of 880 entries, compared with New Zealand’s biggest marathon, last year’s Rotorua, in which 131 finished in under three hours.