“Background to the Bendigo 150”

An excerpt from the 1982 Clairvaux written by Mr Paul Quinn

In 1982 a group of senior students were running beside the river near Aberfeldie Park. It was our usual daily training run in preparation for the ACC Cross Country. Someone in the group mentioned that it would be good if there was more reason for our training than the events planned for the cross country season. It occurred to me that we could kill two birds with the one stone. Just prior to this particular training session the Student Council had been asked what we had contributed to worthy causes outside the school. So I mentioned we could always conduct a runathon and donate the money to charity.

As the run progressed, we chose Bendigo as our starting point. This was because Paul McGuire who was the College Vice Captain that year, pointed out it was 150 kilometres from St Bernard’s. He knew this because he had ridden a bike to Bendigo where his grandmother lived, and he had a speedo on his bike which recorded the distance. It was convenient he lived very close to the school just off Buckley Street.

Next morning before school a few of those on the training run visited the staffroom before school just to make conversation. I repeated our recently hatched scheme. Most of the staff that were present just laughed. The comment was that it would not get any interest and was bound to fail. It was probably this response more than any other that ensured the success of the event for that year. I made a bet with our art teacher that we would succeed.

Despite the initial skeptical reaction from staff one of the hallmarks of the run was the excellent working relationship between staff and students. It was great to see that the present student committee and Mr Gerard Brown were able to continue with this tradition.

And so began the very successful Bendigo 150. In 1998 11 students from St Columba’s joined our squad of 33 students. With more traffic on the roads it was decide to change to the Maribyrnong River. The main focus has continued with fund raising for charities.