For the first time, a team of South African ultradistance trail runners will participate in the Trail World Championships presented by the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU). This third annual edition of the Trail World Championships, takes place in the beautiful Connemara region of northern Galway in Ireland, an area of breathtaking scenery, a rugged coastline, dramatic mountains, numerous lakes and rivers and woodlands.
The South African team, selected by the ASA Track and Field Commission based on results from The Otter African Run, Table Mountain Challenge and the three-day African-X, includes Iain Don-Wauchope, William Robinson, Katya Soggot, Su Don-Wauchope and Hi-Tec Ambassadors Bruce Arnett and Jeannie Bomford. Pieter de Jager, ASA Technical Manager, is the team manager.
“In selecting the team we looked for athletes who regularly feature in the top five positions on the local trail running circuit, but also athletes who are known as ‘hard’ athletes in their fields,” says James Evans, Acting Athletics South Africa Chairperson.
IAU regulates and sanctions race events longer than the marathon distance of 42.2 kilometres. IAU events include World Championships for 50K and 100K road races, 24-hour runs and, in recent years, ultramarathon trail running.
This year’s IAU Trail World Championships, which takes place on Saturday 9 July 2011, covers a 70-kilometre route within the Connemara National Park. The course terrain includes open ground, hard packed trails, loose rock trails, bog, streams and forests. The route also negotiates part of the Twelve Bens mountain range, including Galway’s highest peak Benbaun Mountain, which runners will ascend and descend – twice.
The event is both an individual and team competition where teams are ranked according to the cumulative time of the top three finishers. The South Africans will be up against tough competition, running against 120 athletes from 20 countries.
Arnett, a Hi-Tec Ambassador, has been a leading competitor in local trail races for over a decade. Most notable has been his multiple wins of the 100km Skyrun, held annually in the Witteberg Mountains on the border of Lesotho. He has also won most others, like PUFfeR, 4 Peaks, Table Mountain Challenge, Addo 50miler and the seven-day Kalahari Augrabies Extreme.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for South African trail running. We don’t know the runners from the other countries so we aren’t sure about our competition but it will be a good experience,” says Arnett.
“With only a month’s notice before the race, we’ve prepared as best as possible and we’re looking forward to good results individually and for the team.”
The team leaves for Ireland on Wednesday night.
For more information on the IAU Trail World Championships 2011, visit www.runconnemara.com. The IAU website, at www.iau-ultramarathon.org, will carry ticker-tape style live coverage during the race.
As one of the privileged SA team members to participate in Run Connemara on 9 July, i gladly shed further light on our day out there on the Irish plains. For starters i have to say what a super bunch of team mates! Thank you to all of them for making it such a fun trip, and a big thank you to ASA for such a great opportunity and experience.
As Bruce points out in his comment, the short notice we had for this event (a month!) was unfortunate and naturally impacted on our performance. ASA were conscious of our position, but keen for SA to gain insight into such an event, with a view to getting better informed and advised on how to prepare for the next event (in two years’ time).
The distance and conditions of the route (including long sections of bog to negotiate and slippery vertical ascents/descents) made it far from the ideal trail run, and sadly little opportunity to show off our rock rabbit prowess.
Congratulations to Bruce, Will and Su for doing well despite the lack of sufficient training. To clarify on the rest of us – Iain and Jeannie were battling with colds/flu and sensibly bailed during the race when they realised that in their weakened state, it was not wise to continue. My excuse for my shoddy time was that at 35k my left knee caved in with shooting pain on each stride (an inflammatory/alignment issue rather than an injury) and sadly i knew my chances of doing a decent time were blown. The pain was manageable and i soldiered on, hobbling and wincing for the remaining 40k (including an extra 5km at the end because i took a wrong turn!), but enjoying myself, taking in the grandeur of the scenary and occasion…
Amazing times. I thought we were fast here in SA but it goes to show we’re quite a bit off the pace. And with perhaps the most ideal, idyllic and varied trail running terrain in the world I don’t think we have any excuses.
Time to hit the hills and up the ante.
Any update on how team SA got on? Any chance of a race report? It would be nice to know the standard of the international enduro runners…
Bruce Arnett was highest placed South African at 36th. He finished in 7:49:39. Ake Fagereng (orienteer from Cape Town, running as an individual for Norway) was 41st in 7:56:31.
Erik Clavery from France won in 6:39:07. Unbelievable how fast the front guys run! And only five minutes between 1st and 6th.
William Robinson 68th place in 8:48:08.
Then Su Don-Wachope 77th in 09:02:11 and Katya Soggot in 10:42:12 (104th). I don’t know what the women’s placings were in the women’s field – these are overall positions. First woman was Maud Gobert (France) in 7:41:31. 31st overall.
Iain Don-Wachope may have gone out too hard. At 28km he was second place and from 40km he seemed to go backwards and looks like he didn’t finish. Jeannie Bomford also had a bad one and from the splits it looks like she DNFd by 40km too. Pity as both are good runners but perhaps not used to this distance.
Bruce got home this morning and says, “7:49 – but it was well slower than what I could do on full fitness. The route had 2800m of climb, not the 1700m the profile indicated, and the open grassland sections were pretty much bog all the way. There was still over 30km of tar or hardpack gravel, which, for me, was actually the non-fun part. It was a tough course that would have been better to tackle fully fit.”