White on target for river run milestone

When the Proclaimers first belted out their famous ditty “I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more” they certainly didn’t have Simon White in mind.

While the Scottish band attest to walk that far to reach their goal, by the time White crosses the finish line in the Maitland Mile on Sunday he would have clocked up the equivalent distance in running races.

White, a 36-year-old who started running competitively in 2007, will participate in all three distances of the Maitland River Run (4, 8 and 12 kilometres) before wrapping up the day with a crack at the Maitland Mile.

“I usually go for a longer run on a Sunday so I thought why not enter all four events,” White said.

“It is a unique opportunity to race like this, one after the other, because it is normally all on at

the same time – and I want to take it up.

“It will also bring up 1000 miles of racing for me, which is the equivalent of 1609km, plus there is about 10,000km worth of training on top of that.

“When you count one metre per step, it makes for about 10 or 12 million steps, so it is no surprise that your knees start to wear out after a while.”

White has an eye towards the 2014 Commonwealth Games after making a clean sweep of the steeplechase discipline at NSW Country, NSW Masters and Australian Masters championships.

He has been taking advice from Australia’s premier steeplechase athlete of the last decade, Youcef Abdi, who won the 2011 Maitland Mile.

White will have his work cut out for him on Sunday with Commonwealth Games representative Scott Westcott expected to take part in the 2012 Maitland Mile.

There will be $1000 worth of prize money on offer for the Maitland Mile, which will start and finish in the Maitland Mall at the end of Bulwer Street.

The third annual dash will start at 12.40pm.

First race of the day is at 9.30am and money raised from the event will go to the Maitland Hospital Foundation.

For more information visit the organiser’s website

www.maitlandriverrun.net