STEVE Moneghetti may still be breaking records, but he takes success in his stride, ROSLYN LANIGAN reports[see also: "30 FLAT AT 46"]
If you happen to spot a supremely fit, slightly weedy-looking bloke with a distinctly Aussie twang lining up for the New York City Marathon in the next few years, chances are it's Steve Moneghetti.
While it's been nine years since he officially retired from racing, "Mona" just can't give the game away. A self-confessed veteran at age 47, Moneghetti still runs every day, sometimes twice a day, clocking up more than 100km a week.
Just two months ago, he broke a world record, slicing two seconds off the previous mark for a 10km road race in the 45-49 age group. To most, long-distance running seems like utter madness - a war between mind and body, followed by inevitable pain.
But the Ballarat-based champion reckons he was "born to run".
"I'm pretty determined, I've got a good physical make-up, I train hard and don't often get injured and I've got a good ability to set long-term goals," Moneghetti says. "Put all of that together in a package and that makes a pretty good marathon runner."
He's not kidding.
Moneghetti represented Australia at four Olympic Games, finishing in the top 10 three times. He won a gold medal, a silver and two bronze in a long Commonwealth Games career, and finished third in the 1997 World Championships marathon in Athens.
He's chairman of the Victorian Institute of Sport, a patron of just about every major running event in Australia, and was recently appointed the Australian team's Chef-de-Mission for next year's Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
But Moneghetti, a qualified engineer and teacher and father-of-four, says he wasn't always a star.
"I played a bit of sport when I was a kid but I wasn't really identified as being a sportsperson," he says. "My neighbour saw me running around at home when I was about 13 or 14 and he got me to go in a running race. I wasn't that good, but the thing that I found was as the distance got longer, the better I was. When you're at primary school, you're only running a couple of laps around the oval, so I wasn't that dominant. But, in the end, I reckon if there was a 50km race at the Olympic Games, I would have run that."
Moneghetti rates the London Marathon, which races across Tower Bridge and past Buckingham Palace, as one of his favourite courses - "it's like a travel diary of London" - and the Olympic marathons as the toughest, as they are designed to "sell" a city, not for a fast or easy race.
"But each course is challenging in its own way - it's better than being boring and straight down a highway," he says.
Despite worldwide success, Moneghetti has never competed in the famed New York City Marathon, which weaves through all five boroughs of the Big Apple. "But I'd rather turn up and run in New York as John Smith because no one knows who I am and I can just enjoy it," he says. Although Moneghetti has seen plenty of the world, he remains supremely passionate about his home town.
He has never lived much more than a quick jog from Lake Wendouree, ringed by the Steve Moneghetti Track, so named not only for his sporting ability, but for his commitment to Ballarat.
He writes a daily blog for the website of regional TV station Prime, and many of his posts relate to civic issues. "I'm passionate about Ballarat and I also like to think I'm knowledgeable and making a difference to the city as well," Moneghetti says. "I think that people who leave Ballarat are people who have been here all their lives and they want to go somewhere else to explore, but I was the opposite.
"Ballarat was always my base."
Another of Moneghetti's passions is a little more quirky - he's always in pursuit of a great cup of coffee. "I love my coffee. I have a lot of meetings, so that's a good excuse to drink plenty," he says. "I think the more coffee you drink the more you become picky about what coffee you do drink. I read somewhere that you can pick how good a cafe is by how many half-cups of coffee are left, and that's probably true."
Not surprisingly, Moneghetti is also keen to see sport given greater priority within the Victorian education curriculum, and is buoyed by the current running resurgence.
"Ten years ago you couldn't get anyone to turn up to a run and now suddenly it's taken off again," he says. "Lifestyle has become so important and people are taking ownership of their own health and fitness and running is just so convenient. It's certainly become such a big part of my life - it might be raining and blowing a gale and the last night you'd ever want to be running around Lake Wendouree but I'll be there. It's just what I do."
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