Blackmore's Sydney Running Festival

The Blackmores Sydney Running Festival, which took place on 20th September, has become an iconic event in the Australian running calendar. The organisers generously let our guides run free-of-charge and this year Achilles entered 3 teams in the 9km Blackmores Bridge Run.

Team Zhila consisted of Zhila Hasanloo and her guide Deb Colebrook, Team Ben was Ben Gibb and guide Tom Alfry, and Team Bill saw Bill Connolly running with his regular guide Michael Levy. [In 2015, Bill and Michael have competed in the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon, the Sydney Harbour 10k and the City2Surf.]
As is the case in all Achilles community events, each of the teams demonstrated the ethos of Achilles. Zhila had not run for many years when she joined Achilles in mid-2015. She initially walked most of the training sessions but is now confidently running in large community events. Ben joined a couple of years ago and has steadily improved as a runner, requiring the Club to allocate faster guides to accompany him at training and in races. Bill has overcome a series of injuries to become a strong competitor and, like Zhila and Ben, is a regular at our Sunday sessions. Each has fun running at his or her ability, with guides happy to keep the appropriate step.