Queensland’s Zoe Manning and WA’s Carl Harrison won the Surf Coast Century ultra marathon on Saturday September 13 with 1400 runners participating in the 100km and 50km trail running events.
Half the field competed in the 100km or 50km events as solo runners while the remaining competitors participated in a relay team of two, three, or four runners covering approximately 25km each of the 100km course.
Harrison and Manning were crowned the 100km ultra marathon champions, placing first and second overall in times of 09:01:45 and 09:15:25, respectively.
Harrison’s incredible win comes off the back of winning the Margaret River Ultra Marathon (80km) earlier this year.
“It was the greatest start, I was feeling really fresh along the beach and through the rock hopping, but as I reached leg 3 it was a killer,” Harrison said.
“I took the lead early on and didn’t expect to be running the remaining kilometres by myself – lucky it was beautiful out there.”
Coming in second overall in the men’s field was Matty Tyndall in 09:25:19; and 9 minutes behind in third place was Dale Nimmo in 09:34:34.
Meanwhile, hot on Harrison’s heels was the quality performance by Manning, at just 23 years old and taking out her first ultra win in only her second attempt at the distance.
“It was a stunning course, I’ve never really run in this type of environment before so it was something new to try and definitely worth it – it was such an amazing experience; but it hurt a lot,” she said.
Yve Brady (09:40:57) came runner-up second female with Lauren Frisken in third (10:44:30).
Equally as impressive were the winners of the 50km ultra event, won by Aidan Ford (04:01:00) and Jade Bucklow (04:39:44) who were both first-time ultra race competitors.
Amy Edwards was second and Sarah Foster was third in the women’s field while Daniel Armstrong and Tom Noble rounded out the male 50km podium within just 10 minutes of Ford.
