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Rodney Mackinney
Rodney 'Rod' James MacKinney was born in Dubbo and was educated at East Orange Public School and Orange High School. At a very early age it was evident that he was a distance runner of outstanding potential. However his running career really started in his last year of school in 1958 when he ran a very rare 'dead heat' in a time of 4.18 minutes for the mile.
His competitive career spanned across the early 1960s until 1979. In 1977 he ran a second in the Orange Mini Marathon in conjunction with the first Orange Eight Day Games. His last competitive marathon was the Victorian Marathon in 1979 at the age of almost 38; he was still able to run the event in 2 hours and 29 minutes.
Part of his training in Orange saw Rod run from the Orange Post Office to the Bathurst Post Office in 1961 and again in 1963. He covered the 56km distance in 3 hours and 48 minutes. In 1963 Rod was placed third in the State Marathon and two years later he won this same event in a time of 2 hours 26 minutes 57 seconds.
Nineteen sixty-six was to be his best year with great performances in five highly competitive marathons. He retained his State title in 2 hours 23 minutes 29 seconds, but was beaten in the Australian Marathon at Ballarat by Tony Cook by a mere 6 seconds. This was to cost him a place in the Australian team for the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica with Australia taking only one marathon runner.
However Rod was selected to represent Australia in the Fukuoka International Marathon in Japan and in his training program for this major event he ran the gruelling 20.5km Pinnacle Circuit, sometimes three times in a row, for a total of 61.5 km.
In Japan Rod ran his personal best to record 2 hours 19 minutes and 6 seconds, breaking Ron Clark's Australian best time by almost 1 minute and finish fifteenth in an international field. In 1967 Rod was placed third in New South Wales and the Australian titles and was invited to compete in the New Zealand marathon where he was placed third.
In 1971, after a layoff of about two years, Rod made a return to competitive running and was placed second in the Victorian Marathon and fifth in the Australian in Perth. He tried out for the Montreal Olympics in 1976 and was placed fifth overall. He took part in his last competitive marathon, the Victorian, in 1979.
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