New Zealand’s Ruth Croft has claimed the women’s UTA50 title at Ultra-Trail Australia in Sydney's west, just hours after arriving in the country.
The runner came out on top across the 50km Blue Mountainscourse, which included 2,450m of elevation, finishing in 4:52:09.
Croft only arrived in Australia on Thursday evening but quickly got up to speed with the country’s largest trail running event, taking victory by almost five minutes.
Croft spent most of the 50 kilometres neck and neck with Sydney’s Paige Linegar, who finished in 4:56:49, with the two opening up a lead on the rest of the female competitors a third of the way through the race. Anna McKenna finished third in a time of 5:12:22.
“I’m pretty knackered to be honest, it was a tough day, especially the last 7km where I struggled pretty bad,” Croft said.
“I kind of held back a bit at the start, there were four of us female runners together and then at about the 17km aid station I tried to make a bit of a move.
“I wasn’t really sure how far Paige was behind me and then after the long descent, and then the climb out of the long descent I remember looking over my shoulder and I saw Paige so for the last 7km I was running scared,” she said.
“I kept looking over my shoulder because I wasn’t climbing that strong today, so I was lucky just before the stairs it was a bit more runnable so I think that’s where I was able to get a gap.”
This year’s Ultra-Trail Australia was Croft’s first visit, with the Kiwi enjoying the opportunity to take on a new course.
“Everyone talks about the stairs and I didn’t think they would be that bad but actually after 48km in the legs and that last climb up it was pretty tough,” Croft said.
“It’s awesome to be able to come across and do this race, in Australia and New Zealand we’ve been pretty lucky with our situations so it’s been good to have races going on in New Zealand and then come over to Australia and have another normal race experience.
“It’s just been a good race for me as I’ve been doing mainly road running so it’s been good to get the legs back into the trails and I really enjoyed it out there and it was my first chance to run the Blue Mountains,” she said.
More than 2,000 runners took to the start line of UTA50, with the race a part of the four-day trail running festival, the country’s largest event of its kind.
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