Noosa’s Beth McKenzie has claimed victory in the women’s UTA100 race at Ultra-Trail Australia by UTMB, with Michael Dimuantes from Canberra winning the men’s race.
Professional triathlete turned trail runner Beth McKenzie led the women’s race from start to finish, taking the win in 10:41:43, almost 20 minutes ahead of Lucy Bartholomew, with Stephanie Auston rounding out the podium.
“This was probably the hardest day of my life and I’ve done a bunch of IRONMAN races but this is a whole different level but I’m just feeling excited, there is so much love out there and it was such a great experience,” McKenzie said.
“The day started with a beautiful sunrise and a run along a big ridge where I even took a video because I thought this is too good not to do it. The first hour was super flowy and then after that things got pretty technical on me and that’s not my strength but I just kept going, I had some really tough patches, I took a fall around 70km and then coming into Queen Vic I lost a lot of time, Lucy was closing in on me, I think she closed five or six minutes and I knew it, so then I just knew that I had to really huff it down that big descent and then just used what I had to get home.”
McKenzie, based in Noosa, knew that Bartholomew was hot on her heels throughout the closing stage of the race.
“It’s really hard because you just don’t know where anyone is, you don’t get a lot of information in a race like this, you just have to trust your legs, trust yourself that you’re going really hard even if you’re only going 3kms an hour straight up a hill but that’s the best you can do and just trust that it’s a hard for everyone else too,” she said.
McKenzie crossed the finish line in front of a packed crowd in Katoomba, with the mother of two digging deep throughout the closing stages of the race.
“It was amazing and to be very honest this finish line right here, maybe because it was that I won, I don’t know, it was better than the Kona IRONMAN, better than any other finish I’ve been through, it was insane and the support I had along the way was really good too,” McKenzie said.
“I really, really struggled the last 30km so I was just thinking that I’ve got two daughters, they’re nine and six and I love showing that mum can do hard things but also doing it for the mums, a lot of mums give up on their own goals and I think that it’s pretty special to show your kids that you can get out there and do hard things and they’ll probably do them too, it was just thinking about that a lot.”
Michael Dimuantes crossed the finish line in Katoomba in 9:01:24, more than 50 minutes ahead of Shaun Pettit, with Josef McGrath just behind in third.
The Canberra-based runner was in the mix early before taking the lead around a third of the way through the 100km race and never looked back, pushing ahead to take an impressive victory.
“I tried to be a bit smarter than I usually am today, I tried to just relax in the first two or three hours, I think I was a bit more confident in my running going into this so that helped, and then it just went really, really well,” Dimuantes said.
“Nutrition was great, I felt really strong most of the day, I had a bit of a low patch before Queen Vic and then was able to run really well down and almost all the way on the climb out. Once I got close to home the feeling was just amazing.
“I train in Canberra with a training partner and we have some pretty big goals in trail running, it’s nice to see that happen over a weekend like this for all of us together, it all came together this weekend which it rarely does,” he said.
Dimuantes said that he enjoyed the support out on course, including from his training partner Charlie Hamilton who won UTA50 and then headed straight back out to crew for him.
“It means as much as any other really fun day running in the mountains, but it’s also nice to work so hard towards something and then it comes off really well,” Dimuantes said.
“It was so much fun out there, all the 50km runners as I was coming past were really supportive, my crew, my wife Zoe was amazing all day and Charlie who ran 50km and then came to help crew me was unreal.
“It was nice, I was kind of expecting to see him there and expecting to hear that news, I thought hopefully that would happen and if I didn’t get that news, I would have been a bit shocked,” he said.
Runners will continue to finish the UTA100 until lunchtime on Sunday, with athletes having up to 28 hours to traverse the 100km course.
More than 7000 runners have headed to the Blue Mountains this weekend for Ultra-Trail Australia by UTMB, the second largest trail running event in the world, featuring 11km, 22km, 50km and 100km distances.
UTA100 – Men’s Results
Michael Dimuantes – 9:01:24
Shaun Pettit – 9:55:27
Josef McGrath – 9:56:55
Andy McConnell – 9:59:44
Daniel Stein – 10:07:04
Scott Richmond – 10:21:41
Aaron Smith – 10:25:07
Andrew Gaskell – 10:26:57
Michael Lough – 10:27:28
Nigel Hill – 10:31:05
UTA100 – Women’s Results
Beth McKenzie – 10:41:43
Lucy Bartholomew – 11:00:34
Stephanie Auston – 11:11:17
Emily Gilmour-Walsh – 11:27:12
Nicole Paton – 11:38:15
Naomi Brand – 11:43:55
Sarah Ludowici – 11:56:00
Lucy Holman – 11:57:48
Robyn Bruins – 12:20:36
Anna Pillinger – 12:28:38
