ULTRA-TRAIL AUSTRALIA 2017
It was an epic Ultra-Trail Australia weekend that race organisers could have cancelled due to the rain, but in some last minute rescheduling both the UTA100 and UTA50 course routes were changed to allow the events to go ahead. The 100km course excluded Kedumba Pass and the UTA50 traversed the first half of the UTA100 route and started two hours later than originally planned.
Boasting a talented line-up of elite athletes in the UTA100, it was UTA debutant Tim Tollefson from the USA who was to take the honours in 8:52:00, in his first time running in Australia. “I’m very happy,” he said. “I don’t even know what the time was, more just the place,” he joked at the finish. “I was just trying to keep it controlled through to the 57km aid station where I saw my wife and at that point I started to push a bit and tried to create more a gap in the last half of the race.” Tollefson lead from the 31km mark after pulling away from Frenchman Aurelien Collet who finished in third. Thinking that Canadian Rob Krar, a two-time Western States 100 mile endurance run winner was on his tail inspired him to push harder.
“I assumed Rob was closing in on me but it turned out he wasn’t. I definitely was running scared,” Tollefson said. Krar, who took a wrong turn near the start and ended up near the finish line, still managed to run down the competition to finish 21 minutes 15 seconds after Tollefson. “In a way it was the best case scenario because I had to run my most patient and my truest race possible to finish the race, let alone finish second,” Krar said. “It’s been a long road back. It’s almost two years since I raced competitively.”
While the course changes could have thrown many athletes like Lucy Bartholomew who had trained intensively on the course, after an initial freak out, the 2017 UTA100 women’s race winner took it in her stride. “I’m not going to lie, it really threw me. Listening to the other athletes on the panel lastnight I had a change of mindset and I went into it thinking this could be a positive,” she said after her 10:52:35 winning run. The Melbourne athlete, who turned 21 on race day, was emotional as she crossed the finish line. “It was the most special race I’ve ever done. I had people coming at me, wishing me happy birthday, telling me I’ve got this and I wouldn’t have had it any other way,” Bartholomew said. “The win is a bonus, but having my dad and my brother to come up here and my brother to crew me and his girlfriend, that means the world to me, more than a first place on the podium. But it’s a bonus, I wouldn’t change it.”
In a family affair, Lucy’s dad Ash also ran the UTA100 and her brother Josh and his girlfriend Hannah Madge completed the Pace UTA22 the previous day. The couple backed up on the Saturday to crew her, and at the fourth checkpoint (Katoomba Aquatic and Fitness Centre) they arrivedwith a happy birthday banner and a top-up of energy gels and hydration before Lucy was quickly on her way again. At that same checkpoint, Jono O’Loughlin from Sydney, competing in his 10th UTA100, said after cramping in his calves, he was coming good, but “there was a long way to go”. He took the time to kiss his 11-month-old son Robbie before heading on his way. “It’s the strongest I’ve ever seen him look,” said his wife Bec O’Loughlin. Jono pushed on to cross the line in 10:33:04and secure 13th place.
And in her final race as she embraces elite racing retirement, Hanny Allston, the 2016 UTA50 winner clocked in at 11:12:00securing second place behind Lucy Bartholomew. “I’m just really stoked with what I have achieved today and I’m really excited to go away today and let that be the celebration of 20-odd years of racing at the elite level,” the Hobart athlete said at the finish. Allston’s timing chip wasn’t always updating on the live race tracker, so at times it appeared Blue Mountains runner Lou Clifton (11:24:06) was second-placed, but the 45-year-old was over the moon with third. “I would have been happy to get top 10 and then I would have been happier with top five, but top three wasn’t even on my radar,” Clifton said. It just goes to show, the human body is capable of many unbelievable feats. Take Alf Johnston. The 74-year-old from the Sutherland Shire spent all day and night on his feet to complete the 100km just five minutes before the 28-hour cut-off. And then in the UTA50 there was one-legged Paralympian Michael Milton from Canberra, who ran the 50km on crutches. The 44-year-old finished in 12:08:57. His hands were a mess from the wear and tear on the crutches but he was in good spirits.
“There was a party at the start and a party in the finish,” he joked upon completion. “Last time I had a big run I finished Gold Coast Marathon and I got pushed in a wheelchair.” While the course changes meant Tarros Ladders were now included, Milton took it in his stride. More challenging was hearing the cheering at the finish long before he actually got there. “There’s a real sting in the tail of this course. I knew the other course, I didn’t know this course at all. Just around all these corners, you think you are heading towards the finish, you can hear it, then you head away from it,” he said. “It’s great to finish, I’m optimistic I haven’t done any permanent damage which is good.” Just seconds separated the first three men to finish the UTA50. Despite stopping for 10 minutes with cramps, Nepalese Samir Tamang claimed victory in 4:07:09, before UTA100 two-time winner Stuart Gibson from Tasmania came in 10 seconds later, and early leader Frenchman Thibaut Baronian at 4:08:33.
“The last 5km were brutal, I had to really, really dig deep into the reserves but I managed to hold it together but I was just not quite there but I’m chuffed,” said second-placed Gibson. In the women, Kellie Emmerson (4:42:27) from Victoria outran Sydney’s Sophie Brown (5:03:19) and Michelle McAdam (5:08:13). “I tried to be a bit more conservative than last year,” said Emmerson, the 2016 UTA100 third placegetter. “I went out a bit too hard last year. About the 15km mark the girls just kept coming one by one and it took me the whole race to reel them back in so I didn’t want that to happen again. I tried to play it a bit smarter and tried to fuel regularly, and the Coke was really good.” Meanwhile, it was Blue Mountains residents who featured on the podium in the 1.2km quad-busting Scenic World UTA951 stair climb. Marnie Ponton from Glenbrook cleaned up the women’s race in 9 minutes 25 seconds, while former Bullaburra resident and Olympian Ben St Lawrence claimed the overall title in just 8 minutes 23 seconds.
PACE ATHLETIC UTA22 PORT
In rain and cool temperatures Newcastle’s Vlad Shatrov stormed home to win the Pace UTA22 on Friday, May 19, breaking the course record by one minute. Finishing in 1:42:27, Shatrov knocked a full minute off last year’s inaugural Pace UTA22 won by David Byrne in sunny conditions. Shatrov barely slowed as he crossed the line at Scenic World in Katoomba in a commanding finish, still looking surprisingly fresh. At the sewage treatment works, some 14km into the race, Shatrov was second to Charlie Brooks from the NSW Central Coast who had a one minute lead, but a speedy ascent up the 951 Furber Steps saw him take the lead. “That last bit at the end, at 15 kilometres I just broke away and kept going, it’s all there,” Shatrov said at the finish line. “It was a bit slow ‘cause it was wet, maybe I could have taken off another couple of minutes,” he joked. Shatrov is well known for his ambitions to represent Australia in the marathon at the Rio Olympics, and he cleaned up the men’s race in the Six Foot Track Marathon in March, also held in the Blue Mountains.
Friday’s Pace UTA22 started from the old Queen Victoria Hospital site in Wentworth Falls, and saw 1300 runners descend Kedumba Pass and enter the Jamison Valley, before climbing up through Leura Forest and Federal Pass and on to the cramp-inducing Furber Steps. The first half of the course was still in good condition despite the rain, Shatrov said, “but the back half you are sliding all over the place.” Chasing Shatrov up the stairs to cross the line in 1:45:51 was Niam MacDonald of Wellington, New Zealand, followed by Blake Hose of Geelong, Victoria in 1:46:49. There was little between the four female race leaders over the 22km course, with the UK’s Sophie Horrocks taking the honours in 2:04:16, just falling short of Stephanie Auston’s 2016 2:03:28 record.
Horrocks was closely followed by Ella Jamieson of Sydney in 2:05:42 and Jasmine Sargeant of Leonay near the foot of the Blue Mountains, in 2:06:39. The 10am race start at Wentworth Falls was delayed by 35 minutes due to an accident on the Great Western Highway blocking buses carrying competitors from entering Tableland Rd. But runners kept warm jogging around and huddling together, and even breaking out the occasional dance move to some upbeat music pumping from the stereo by the start line.
