Charlie El-Hage’s 100th run

Today Charlie El-Hage notched up his 100th run with our club. I remember first meeting Charlie on 12th July 1992 when representing our club in the VCCL country championships in Wangaratta. There were 3 in a team, Ian Rae & I were on the starting line when just before the starter fired his gun Watto appeared running down the main straight towards us after a quick u turn on the starting line Watto went on to win the race whilst I found myself having a real tussle with Charlie. I continued to meet Charlie at the country championships over the following years & around the Geelong area at various fun runs. I kept telling him what a great club we had & in 2002 he joined up after moving down here.

Charlie is still waiting for his maiden handicap win but he has been in the top 10 placing on 38 occasions since 2004.  In 2005 he was placed 7 times including a second in the 3 musketeer’s team’s race, in 2006 another 14 times & last year 7 times. In 2002 he won the best first year runner. In 2005 he won the Back markers Sealed Series as well as the Veterans Championship and in 2006 he won the 15km Back markers race at the clubrooms .He has run 2nd 4 times & 3rd 4 times Hopefully a win is not to far away although Charlie has been known to make things hard for himself. One time at the St Leonards 10km he arrived at the starting line just as the gun went so had to run the whole way with his tracksuit pants on! I'd  just like to say what a great guy he is .My neighbor Carol thinks he's a great horse vet & he's not to bad with cows either. I few years ago our favorite cow “Asics” was off color, I mentioned it to Charlie & the following Saturday he came to look at her. What he didn't tell me until after he'd given Asics an injection was that only a couple of days earlier his house had burnt down. He had a million things to do yet he still found time to honor his promise .Well Charlie, Asics is now 20 & still going along ok & if you want to win a race I think it might pay to take a bit of the medication that you gave Asics. On behalf of the club well done on reaching 100 runs & in case they were lost in the fire here is a copy of the results from the Wangaratta race.

Geoff Clark