Athlete
Have you heard of cross triathlon? Do you know what aqua bike is? I had not heard of either before I signed up for the Trex Snowy Mountains race in January. Quick intro to cross triathlon and aqua bike Cross triathlon is triathlon but off …
You can try and hide from important things. This can work for some time. But eventually you will be forced to face them. 2023 was that year for me. I was challenged almost every single day dealing with things I had put off for years. …
In 2019, Ultra-Trail Australia (UTA) was the second largest trail running event in the world (after Ultra-Trail Mont Blanc), and despite its size offered great trail community vibes. By the end of 2022 the race had almost completely lost the trust of the Australian trail community. How did this happen, and will UTA be able to resurrect itself in 2023?
Timeline of key events
2008 – The North Face 100 launched. Offering one event, a giant 100km loop through the Blue Mountains. 4 organising staff supported by 25 state emergency services volunteers. 160 runners.
2013 – 50km distance added to the North Face 100.
2016 – name changed to Ultra-Trail Australia. Two distances added (22km and the Furber Stairs time trial). Event size and scope significantly increased and Race Expo offered for the first time.
2018 – Tom Landon-Smith and Alina McMaster sell Ultra-Trail Australia to Ironman. Tom remains race director.
2019 – UTA runs for 4 days with 5 distances, about 7,000 runners, 800 volunteers and 13,000 spectators. There is a 50/50 female/male split among runners. Entries sold out quickly (UTA50 3hrs, UTA22 22 hours, UTA100 3 days)
2020 – The May event is delayed due to COVID-19 and rescheduled to October. The October event is cancelled due to COVID-19
2021 – Event goes ahead as scheduled from 13-16 May 2021. After 13 years as race director, Tom Landon-Smith steps down and Nick Christopher takes the reigns. The trail community holds its breath and hopes that the spirit of UTA and great community vibes of the event will be maintained.
March 2022 – Ultra-Trail Kosciuskzo, a new race in the UTA stable, is launched.
13 April 2022 – UTA 2022 postponed from May 2022 to October 2022 due to trail conditions caused by high levels of rain in the preceding months.
26 October 2022 – one day before UTA is held, the runner guide is released with the finalised courses.
27-30 October 2022 – The postponed UTA 2022 is held on substantially altered courses. The 22km is predominantly on road surfaces (a real stretch to call it a ‘trail race’) and all distances have a significant increase in road and firetrail sections.
30 November 2022 – entries for UTA 2023 go on sale. Entries sell slowly and do not sell out in days as per previous years. As at the end of April 2023, entries are available in all distances.
7-9 December 2022 – Ultra-Trail Kosciuszo inaugural event held.
2023 – UTA’s 15th birthday event.
Views from the Golden Stairs, Blue Mountains National Park
Technical descending down the Golden Stairs
What made UTA so great?
UTA used to be the must-do trail race on the Australian trail running calendar. Offering interesting courses in the stunning Blue Mountains National Park only one hour’s drive from Australia’s largest population centre. Trails that take you a long way from civilisation, while spectators can view the racing from the quaint townships of the Blue Mountains. The trails themselves offer significant variety from fern lined temperate rainforest to stands of tall blue gums and steps steps built into the limestone rockface.
While the trails are awesome and the location convenient, the real reason UTA was great was because it managed to offer all of this while putting the community first. UTA started back in 2008 when well respected outdoor enthusiast Tom Landon-Smith started the North Face 100. While only 160 runners competed that year, the pure trail experience rapidly drew crowds. Tom managed to organically grow the event while retaining the community focus at its core. Everyone involved with UTA as a runner, supporter or volunteer was there for the same reason – for the love of trail running and for sharing this with others in an annual celebration of trail stoke. By the time the race was rebranded to UTA in 2016 it had grown exponentially but still managed to maintain the community focus despite already being one of the largest trail races in the world. Anyone who participated in a pre-2020 UTA would have experienced pre-race nerves at the in person pre-race briefing (athletes all seated in a large hall), goosebumps at the start line, appreciation for the enthusiastic volunteers at aid stations, more goosebumps at Ironpot Ridge hearing the notes of the didgeridoo sound through the bush, and one of the best finish lines in the world packed with people cheering them on at Scenic World.
View across to the Three Sisters.
Single trail on the Federal Pass.
The difficult years 2020 – 2022 – what went wrong
In 2018 Tom Landon-Smith and Alina McMaster sold Ultra-Trail Australia to Ironman. At the time I had only been trail running for a year, but I still had strong views on this transaction. In particular I was anxious to see that UTA continued to put the trail running community first. I was dubious that Ironman could do this. My view is that Ironman triathlon events are very clinical, commercial and cut throat, not to mention very expensive to enter (even more expensive than mass participation trail running events). I soon learned that Tom was staying on as Race Director, and UTA managed to avoid the ‘Ironman effect’ – at least initially. Like all race organisations, the two years of COVID-19 lockdowns were difficult. The 2020 event was postponed and then cancelled due to COVID-19. The 2021 event went ahead. Everyone’s stoke level was quite high being able to race again after so long being locked down. I raced the 22km and the UTA951 (stair race) and had a great time. However, 2021 was also the year that Tom stepped down as race director. There was an almost immediate change in the style of communications and the focus of Ironman, and this eventually played out in the trail community largely turning against UTA in 2022.
UTA has a lot to deal with in 2022, likely still recovering financially from the 2020 cancelled event and dealing with the aftermath of the 2020 bushfires followed by two years of extremely high rainfall that caused flooding, landslides, and significant trail damage to many parts of the courses. While they had a lot on their plate, a lack of communication, miscommunication when there was communication, and very poorly thought out changes to the way the event is run left much of the trail running community deciding not to go back in 2023.
Flood damage to UTA trails meant that the May 2022 race could not go ahead. In March 2022 with two months to go, UTA advised that they were working closely with stakeholders to understand what the current trail closures and trail damage meant for the event. There was then a four week gap in communication before participants received an email advising the race had been rescheduled to 27-30 October 2022. Participants were given the option to defer to 2023 if they could not make the new date. While there was what could be called a communication gap for a few weeks, at least participants were given a month to make changes to plans.
The damage to the trails from the torrential rain continued. The communications that came from UTA after this were infrequent and sometimes misleading. The 6 July 2022 update stated “there will be some slight course changes for the October event due to sections of course that were severely damaged, including along Glenraphael Drive out towards Narrow Neck. Our team is working closely with all stakeholders to finalize courses, and as soon as these are locked in we will let you know”. Even at this time it was evident that there would need to be more than slight changes to the courses. The 18 August 2022 update again said “the vast majority of your UTA courses will remain unchanged, with the key changes being around the slip on Glenraphael Drive which impacts parts of all courses”. At this time the vast majority of all the UTA courses were closed due to flood damage. In mid-September I visited the Blue Mountains. Almost every single trail remained closed due to flood damage and risks of land slides. It was difficult to see how UTA would go ahead, yet there had been almost no communications about the state of the trails at this point. There were almost no communications about the state of the trails in September and October. During this time UTA was no doubt working hard behind the scenes to make the race happen, but the lack of communication and the communications prior being different to the reality put people on edge. In mid October the draft rerouted courses were accidentally released. These courses were very different to original courses and included large amounts of running on roads (particularly for the 11 and 20km distances). This was after almost no communications for weeks, previous communications being there would be slight courses changes with the vast majority being the same. On 21 October 2022 the Friday before the event, UTA finally released communications – that courses had not been finalised yet as consultation still had to occur, that the courses would be different and the runners guide would not be released yet. I have no insight to what was happening behind the scenes. It is possible that UTA genuinely didn’t know there would need to be radical course changes until a week out, but it is unlikely. The announcement came after the options for transfer and deferral had closed. At this point I decided not to go to UTA 2022, as I knew based on the state of the trails that the 20km race was going to be predominantly a road race. The Runner’s Guide was released two days before UTA’s first race. Some of the courses, particularly the 20km was predominantly on road. In my view this is not a ‘trail race’. Others might have different views. I chose not to attend, as training for a road race is very different to what I had been preparing for. There were also other issues that did not mesh well with the trail running community. The finish line was moved from Scenic World to the oval, and lacked any kind of atmosphere. There were also some unusual choices that were aimed at providing entertainment for families with kids waiting for runners to finish but missed the mark completely. Writing this down, it does not seem too egregious a list of things done wrong, but the trail running community really turned against UTA. I initially thought the negative comments on UTA social media posts were likely not representative of the trail running community as a whole, but turned out they were. Entries for the 2023 event have been very slow, with entries still available in all distances two weeks out from the event.
Can UTA bounce back?
It is hard to pinpoint what exactly caused the trail community to turn against UTA but it seems to ultimately come down to poor communication and poor decision making on seemingly small things that matter to the trail running community.
UTA appears to have taken community feedback on board, really improving communications in 2023 and making decisions that align with what the trail running community cares about. They also successfully launched Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko in December 2023, managing to appease most people despite last minute course changes, appearing to learn from earlier mistakes with more frequent and open communication. Back to UTA itself, in February 2023 they announced all distances will return to their traditional courses. They listened to community feedback and are moving the start and finish line back to Scenic World and will be making a functional trail village adjacent. This should help create that special finish line atmosphere which was missing in 2022. The 1km kids race is making a return and will be free with bibs and medals for participants.
Despite the increase in communication and attempts to appease the trail running community, ticket sales remain the slowest in years and are a far cry from pre-Covid times where most distances sold out on launch day. Initially I thought that people were holding off buying entries until the original courses were confirmed, but sales remain slow even now where most of the trails have been reopened by NSW National Parks. Given the cost of entering UTA and the negative experiences of many in 2022, its possible that some have decided that spending their money elsewhere is a better option. It will take Ironman time to rebuild the trust of much of the trail running community.
Furber Steps – final climb in most of the UTA courses.
Furber Steps climb.
Views into the valley from Scenic World including the Scenic World skyway.
UTA courses pass by numerous waterfalls.
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STATE OF OCR IN AUSTRALIA 2023 The last three years have been very difficult for event companies including those in Obstacle Course Racing (OCR). In addition to having to cancel races event companies had already invested money into, most issued race vouchers rather than refunds …
I chose ‘momentum’ as my key word for 2022.
After two years of covid lockdowns making me feel like I was stuck in one spot in more ways than one, I just wanted to move in 2022, preferably in a forward direction, preferably overseas at some point in time.
January started off with promise. I had finally changed jobs after 4.5 years at the one place, and was getting interesting and challenging work. After parting ways with my coach of three years a couple of months prior I had found momentum with running again on my own terms. I was looking forward to finally heading up Mt Bogong around Australia Day. I had two projects I wanted to complete in summer 21/22 and that was Mt Bogong and the Guthega traverse.
Part 1 – Pause
My plans were paused when I fractured several bones in my left foot after falling off a rig. Initially I was very disappointed I couldn’t go up Mt Bogong, but wasn’t that concerned about my foot. People break their toes all the time and seem to be back in four weeks or less. Unfortunately that wasn’t my story. Due to the location of the bones they were slow healing due to blood flow issues with the area. It was ten weeks before I was able to run (1min runs with walking in between).
Being injured is not great for any endurance athlete, and I did my best to stay involved in the community. I still went to races and volunteered including at Spartan Bright, Spartan Marulan, the Australian Mountain Running Championships and Kowen Winter Trails. It is ok to feel both happy to be around the running community and unhappy to be missing out.
Volunteering at twister at Spartan Bright 2022. Fellow canberran Adrian Redman going through on lap two of the ultra.
Volunteering at Spartan Bright 2022. Shannon giving me sass on her way through on her second lap.
Volunteering at twister at Spartan NSW.
Stairway to Sparta at Spartan NSW. Robyn Koszta about to take a grab.
Volunteering at Kowen Winter Trails. -6 degrees is not a great temperature to be a volunteer at an aid station.
Sunrise at Kowen Winter Trails. Very frosty.
Previously when injured I have stayed well away from races until back to fitness. I did the opposite this time. Two weeks after returning to running I was cleared to run 10km which meant I could do the Super at Spartan NSW. As you could predict, this ended poorly because I couldn’t actually jump that well yet (though had been cleared to land safely from obstacles). My race featured a lot of burpees as I could not get over the 8 foot wall or stairway to sparta. Three weeks later I did the Alpine Challenge 16km at Falls Creek as a long run. By May my jumping rehab had progressed and I could introduce very small amounts of downhill running, meaning I could compete in True Grit SA. The Australian Mountain Running Championships were held at Mt Tennent on 11 and 12 June 2022, 12 weeks after I started running. I still wasn’t able to descend at race pace, so although I got to race the uphill course, I could not race the classic up and down course due to my knee being overloaded from the introduction of downhill running a few weeks prior. This also meant I missed out on Kowen trails. My knee still wasn’t quite coping with the load but I insisted on racing True Grit NSW. I would do things differently next time. In particular performance would have come back quicker if I had not pushed returning to racing so much. Most of these races would not have been on my radar if I had been in full health.
Despite taking away the first 6 months of the year, there were some good things that came from my broken foot. Mainly that I started working with coach Ian Hosek, so I could get use to his style while injured and then trust the process when returning to running. I am positive that if I wasn’t working with Ian I would have picked up some other major injury immediately after returning to running. I had never taken a 3 month break from running so did not appreciate that I was essentially starting from the beginning and that it takes a long time to recondition ligaments and soft tissue to running. Other positives were spending a lot of time cross training on the bike, which gave me the skillset to continue road cycling throughout the year. I also actually followed a taper program for the first time for the Australian Mountain Running Championships (previously I would have tapering on my program but wouldn’t follow the programming) and started to see tapering is a positive thing.
Return to run race results
3/4/22 – Spartan NSW Super 10km 185m vert 1hr 5min – 4th female
23/4/22 – Alpine Challenge 16km 351m vert – 1st female
14/5/22 – True Grit SA 11.3km – 2nd female
11/6/22 – Australian Mountain Running Championships uphill course 6.2km 700m vert – 7th female
25/6/22 – True Grit NSW 11km – 2nd female
Part 2 – Play
Finally with my broken foot healed, the second part of the year was all about playing in mountains. By July I could run downhill and finally I could train again on my favourite mountains. Getting covid effected my lungs for four weeks afterwards but I could still spend time running at Mt Coree, Bullen Range, Tidbinbilla, Mt Gingera and Mt Tennent. In August I spent three weeks playing in the Canadian Rockies, travelling through Banff, Yoho, Glacier, and Revelstoke National Parks. I finally did a beginner mountaineering course at Columbia Icefields and climbed Mt Athabasca. There are so many shiny mountains in the Rockies. My neck got sore from looking up the slope ahead while climbing up mountains and from gazing at summits while camping in the valleys.
Day 2 in the Canadian Rockies. Can confirm it is the rockiest place I have ever been.
Just before sunrise at Lake Louise, Canada.
Views on route to Mt Rundle.
Looking down at Lake Louise from Plain of Six Glaciers.
It is possible to take on too much mountain. In my first five days I did Sulphur Mountain, Mt Rundle, the Iceline Loop, two days of mountaineering school and Mt Athabasca. The day after on the Edith Pass loop I completely ran off the single trail onto an exposed shelf because I was so fatigued I could barely follow a path. When I found myself balanced precariously on a cliff the only way back was to climb up. Luckily some hikers were passing on the actual trail which was about 200m away and I could follow their voices to get back on path. The Rockies can be dangerous so probably don’t go alone when that fatigued. It took 11 days but at Glacier NP I finally saw a grizzly bear on my way to Mt Sir McDonald. While they look like teddy bears in photos, grizzly bears are legitimately terrifying when you encounter one eating berries. At the end of my Canada trip I was fortunate to race the Spartan North American Championships at Big White Ski Resort. This was quite a big race to choose as a comeback from a broken foot and also my first Beast race in 2.5 years.
Back in Australia I trained solidly through September with a focus on building back to skyrunning, the type of running I enjoy the most. In October I travelled to Queensland for Spartan Gold Coast and Victoria for Bright 4 Peaks. At Bright 4 Peaks I raced Mt Buffalo, Mt Feathertop, Mt Hotham, and Mystic Hill on back to back days, something that I wasn’t able to complete the first time I attempted it. In November I raced Triple Top, Tasmania’s preeminent skyrace that traverses Mt Roland, Mt Claude and Mt Van Dyke on very technical terrain. There was torrential hypothermic rain throughout the race and I have never raced in such challenging conditions, made even more challenging by coming down with a virus (not covid) a few days before. After recovering from the virus it was only a week or so before Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko. The course was rerouted to take out most of the vertical gain, and this race highlighted the changes I need to make to training for the coming year. Hoping for less pause and more play in 2023.
Race results
27/8/22 Spartan North American Championships 24km 1,299m vert 9th female
28/8/22 Spartan Kelowna Super 13.4km 611m vert 2nd female
15/10/22 Spartan Gold Coast Beast 21.7km 895m vert 2nd female
29/10/22 – 1/11/22 Bright 4 Peaks 3rd female (overall result from the four mountains)
13/11/22 Triple Top 19km 1,079m vert 2nd female
15/12/22 Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko 8th female
Take the conditions, the fear and insecurity, and race. Entry Kosciuszko National Park is my favourite national park in Australia. Being only two hours from Canberra, having Australia’s highest mountains and most beautiful alpine meadows, it is an addictively beautiful place to experience the outdoors. …
Just before 10am on Sunday 13 November 2022 a couple of hundred runners were dropped off at the Round Mountain carpark to start the traverse of Mt Claude, Mt Van Dyke and Mt Roland. Triple Top promotes itself as the most challenging mountain run in …
Big White Ski Resort, BC, Canada
Championship Beast 23km 1,130m vert
Big White was a venue worthy of a championship race – lots of vertical gain, varied terrain requiring a well-rounded trail running skill set and wet weather that made sure that obstacles played a role in the outcome.
I was pretty nervous about this race, having not done a Beast in over 2.5 years due to Covid lockdowns. This was also my first full distance race since I broke my foot at the beginning of the year. Optimally you would do a practice race or two before a championship race, but I was in the Canadian Rockies on annual leave and was just grateful to have this opportunity to race again.
When I arrived at Big White on Friday I was stung by a wasp just above my right eye after my shakeout run. Canadian wasps really hurt, it felt like someone had cut my face with a razor blade. On race morning I woke up and half my face was so swollen I could barely blink my eye. Fortunately for my eye the weather was 5 and rainy at the start which meant the swelling went down as the race progressed, but ideally you have two functional eyes on race day.
I usually start races fast and then recover a little. It’s not everyone’s best strategy but it works for me. Coming back from injury I decided to be more conservative. I did not know that after the initial downhill start the course went suddenly into a muddy single trail (xc ski tracks) through the forest. As a result I got stuck in congestion for the first 2km. It would have been so nice to be able to open up and run my own pace in the long grass and squelchy mud. Lesson learned to start at an appropriately hard pace to get in an appropriate position for any early single trail. Finally after about 2km the course opened to a firetrail allowing for overtaking. The first obstacles were monkey bars, the 4 foot and 7 foot walls. I fell off monkey bars in the wet conditions and did the penalty loop before continuing on. The course was now on dry and rocky single trail climbing to Rhonda Lake and the climb was fun. I was potentially too comfortable and could have been pushing harder but its really hard to trust yourself first race back from injury when you haven’t had that experience of learning when pushing harder is taking you to places you cant recover from.
On the Saturday I took the chairlift to the top to hike around some trails. This was not part of the course but same mountain we ran on so same same in terms of terrain.
Views down to Rhonda Lake.
As we got higher it got colder and after the 8 foot wall and approaching the top of the first climb, I was very happy with my decision to wear gloves and bring a buff to pull up over my face. It was probably 0 or -1 at this point which is fairly cold in the rain but similar to the conditions I’d been running in at home in Canberra winter. The altitude was also similar to Australian mountains being 2,100 at the top, and I felt comfortable particularly after spending the preceding week at higher altitude.
The first part of the descent was on really fun rocky single trail. I had lost a lot of confidence on obstacles and this played out the whole race particularly given the wet conditions and cold hands. I failed Olympus, completing another penalty loop on gnarly offtrail terrain. I was then able to rally and get over stairway to sparta after getting a single hand grab on one of the holds and then run fast on the fire road descent to the lake. Halfway down the descent was z wall, spear throw, dunk wall and slip wall. I failed spear throw and after the 30 burpees followed by dunk wall it was really hard to warm up. The bucket carry felt heavy but it was fairly short taking maybe 1.5-2mins. Luckily after that the firetrail descent continued and the lack of technicality meant that I could warm up and take in some more nutrition. The second climb started after Hercules hoist and the barbed wire crawl. This climb was awesome, all off trail on ski slopes studded with small pine trees with different varieties of grass and moss underfoot. Gradients would have been 35% average with some steep hands grabbing grass sections. I made up some time on this climb catching up with and overtaking some women who had failed less obstacles. The climb was mainly powerhiking but had some runnable terrain in between the three false summits. After reaching the top there was armer and then a downhill firetrail back to the lake where atlas carry lead to the final firetrail run back into the village. By this point the field was fairly spread out and I was very much running by myself.
Near the top of the first climb.
Pretty easy to see here the swelling on half my face from the wasp sting.
The last two kilometres were stacked with obstacles. Multirig was rings to bar to rope attachments. I got to the rope attachments before falling off. I found out after the race that you could touch the top of the rope attachments which makes a huge difference. I had thought you could not use this part of the attachment based on what was said in the pre-race Q&A b on the Friday. This just shows rules can change rapidly and I should have asked the marshal at the obstacle to confirm. After multirig was helix then the 18kg sandbag carry, the box and beater. The box is not an obstacle we have in Australia but after securing my feet on the rope and reaching for the bar on the top it was relatively easy to pull myself over. Having never done anything like the beater before I fell off in the wet conditions and did another penalty loop. After this was the last uphill on a grassy ski slope before rope climb then the last firetrail descent into the village which had the vertical cargo with a table in front (so you essentially have to do a muscle up to get onto the platform to get onto the cargo), A-frame cargo, twister and inverted wall.
Given the 6 obstacle failures, 5 penalty loops and 30 burpees I was fairly happy with the 9th place finish. It was frustrating because my running fitness was there, I had just added 15 or so minutes failing so many obstacles. It was particularly frustrating because I have been training on obstacles coming back from my injury. There has been some improvement in that I did complete 8 foot wall, stairway and twister, all obstacles I failed a few months ago when I was just relearning to jump coming off my broken foot injury. This is what makes OCR racing so interesting in that you need to work on the obstacle skills over time and there are so many pieces to put together to have a good race. Given the wet conditions most elite women failed at least one obstacle (spear throw aside), but even taking into account the rain I had too many failures. I also know that a lot of that came from low confidence. Confidence comes from not only training but racing.
Barbed wire crawl. Fairly high height but very brutally rocky terrain for knees and elbows.
Bling. I really like the championship beast medals.
Much drier conditions for the Super on Sunday. Can you tell the event was sponsored by Nissan?!?
Finish line feels.
Super 13.4km 699m vert
I decided to race the Super on the Sunday to practice obstacles and get some confidence back. The first two kilometres on the muddy single trail the elite women ran together and then Lindsay gradually ramped things up from there. There was only one climb in the super on a different single trail to the Beast, but it was just as rocky and fun despite being on tired legs. The first obstacle was again monkey bars. I jumped up and then fell straight off after a cramp in my rib muscle. I definitely didn’t warm my upper body up enough. Running the penalty loop and then catching back up to Elise on the first climb I was super annoyed with myself for failing another obstacle, but on the climb getting back to where I was behind Lindsay, I managed to turn my head around and successfully completed Olympus and stairway to sparta before the firetrail descent to the lake. Approaching z wall I saw that Lindsay had stuck her spear and was heading into dunk wall. I arrived at spear and although I hit the target it did not stick meaning I completed 30 burpees. Burpees the day after a championship level Beast are killer. By this time the gap with Lindsay probably stretched to 2 or so minutes. The super course from here veered off back to festival with firetrail running followed by the gauntlet of obstacles. Yes it was drier conditions on the Sunday but I was still really happy to be more confident and get multi rig and beater despite the bad start and some unhappy intercostal muscles. Overall running and the obstacles were smoother and it was nice to come away with 2nd even if the gap to first place was 3-4 minutes.
The Spartan North American Championships was such a great way to kick of my season and learn some valuable lessons to work through in the coming weeks. I am just so stoked to be injury free and robust enough to compete in two back-to-back mountain races. Looking forward to taking that stoke into the OCR and trail running season back in Australia.
Helix with multi rig in background.
Helix is serious business when this is only the second time you’ve been on the obstacle.
Alpine terrain at the top of Big White. Not part of the course but indicative of terrain.
14 May 2022 Despite growing up in South Australia and living in Adelaide in 2020 I had never raced the SA True Grit course at Caudo Vineyard. My main reason for not making it up to the Murray to compete was my understanding that the …