John Robinson, Ross McPhee and Simon Austin, all from Bendigo, ran the Goldfields Track, Victoria, Australia leaving Mount Buninyong on Friday 25th September 2020 at approximately 9:00am. The route was followed as per the previous FKT by George Mihalakellis from Mount Buninyong to Bendigo. John Robinson was not able to complete the route pulling out Vaughan Springs, however both Ross McPhee and Simon Austin continued together, completing the entire route in a little over 32 hours, 15 minutes, setting a new FKT.
Originally the date was going to be the week prior on the 18th September however due to covid-19 state restrictions, the decision was made to defer the attempt one week. The weather was suppose to be poor on the 18th with rain forecast so the following week was decided on. As it turned out, the weather on the 25th September was much worse than originally anticipated with a major cold front hitting southern Victoria with unseasonal snow falling down to 200 metes ASL and Ballarat recording it's coldest September day since 1969. Running through Creswick, thick snow fell for approximately one hour. Overnight temperatures were around zero with further intermittent rain falling (sometimes heavily) during the Saturday up until the finish time at Bendigo railway station.
The attempt was streamed live via a Facebook Event page. https://www.facebook.com/events/1270813773267189/?active_tab=about
The run was tracked live using racemap.com
The racemap.com link allows the user to replay the route and participants - note that Ross Mcphee's Racemap tracker was problematic (phone sleeping stopped GPS signal) and did not record fully and John Robinson withdrew at ~127km distance of the 200km run. There are Strava links to both Ross and Simon provided whom both used Suunto Ambit watches.
The Facebook Events page has many videos and comments from throughout the attempt, with friend Craig Feuerherdt supporting and crewing while uploading several videos.
Regards, John Robinson, on behalf of Ross and Simon.