10km can seem like forever – a runner fights the pain during the 10km Athletics event at Holsworthy Barracks in Sydney. A series of events combined to form the ADF Endurance Championship

Battle of the fittest
Five hours of pain worth the gain

By WO2 Greg Young
THE Army can boast the ADF’s Endurance Champion for 2003, with Maj Jeff Rudd claiming the title and proving to strong for the competition.

The Uncle Toby’s Endurance Championship brought together the ADF’s top athletes in a showdown and was conducted between February 26 and March 3 in Sydney.

There were four individuals who entered the category and in order to be eligible for the trophy they were required to compete in every event in the Combined Sports Championships.

Their times for each event were then added together and the competitor with the lowest aggregate time was crowned the ADF Endurance Champion.

The first event was the 800m swim where Navy’s Leut Moon, TUASSC, held a slender lead of 42 seconds over the other competitors.

In the cycling time trial, RAAF’s Cpl Sean Bell, 77 Sqn, took a lead of 45sec. In the 60km road race, Cpl Bell and the Army’s Maj Rudd, RTC (SQ), both recorded the same time of 1hr 32min 37sec, allowing Cpl Bell to maintain his slender lead.

In the Criterium, Maj Rudd and Cpl Bell again finished the race together. In the 10km Athletics Road Race, Maj Rudd was able to take the lead with an outstanding run of 36min 55sec to take a 1min 2sec lead going into the final event, the Olympic Distance Triathlon.

Cpl Bell quickly pulled back the lead with a fast swim, which put him 32 seconds in front of Maj Rudd.

In the cycle leg Maj Rudd put in the ride of his life to pull back the lead finishing 2min 10sec in front of Cpl Bell.

In the run Maj Rudd showed his dominance over the field by running 38min 19sec and eventually crossed the line with a 5min 25sec lead over Cpl Bell.

Maj Rudd’s overall time for all six events was 5hr 15min 0sec, with Cpl Bell second with a time of 5hr 21min 27sec and third went to the Army’s Sgt Wayne Tolver-Banks, 1HSB, in a time of 6hr 21min 18sec.

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