Australian runners now have two opportunities to represent their country on a yearly basis. This is at the 100km level and 24hr level. A check of the IAU website at http://www.iau.org.tw/ will reveal more details. We already have a good team of runners at the 100km level who are more than capable of mixing it on the World stage but our stocks at the 24hr are very low.
Unfortunately we have a handful of runners in the past 2 years that have run 200km plus in a 24hr event. This is barely enough to make our presence felt on the world stage at 24hr races. I believe though this could change. I know there are over a dozen runners in Aust at the moment that would be capable of doing over 200km and I know a couple of those runners could do over 250km if they only believed in themselves. 100 miles in 24hrs should not be the benchmark for good Ultra runners competing in 24hr Events.
This also extends to the 6 day events as well. Our multi day runners have improved in leaps and bounds in the last few years. There are now a few of the multi day runners that are capable of doing over 700km and being competitive around the world and at our own 6-day race in Colac.
So how about it ultra runners of Australia? We now have some GOALS to aim for. Let's show the world what we are made of!
Phil
This was a personal comment only
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment