President's Report: March 2024

Hello to all our runners!

It’s been another busy month with a heap of events on the calendar that have kept runners and race directors (and your committee!) on their toes!

This month we have seen these great events take place – the Belair Marathon, kunyani Mountain Run and Washpool World Heritage Trails to name a few. The growth of backyard ultras continues with Wodonga BYU, Herdy’s Frontyard Ultra and I’m Still Standing Sydney (LOS) getting great numbers and results which continues to prove that the popularity for these events is growing.

Last week we also had our Australian Short Course Trail Championships hosted by the Noosa Ultra-Trail 50km which was another outstanding year for them. Unfortunately the weather gods hindered the race planning with weeks of rain prior causing the course to turn into a mud bath, but that didn’t stop some great results from our athletes. Congratulations to the male and female Australian Short Course Trail Champion winners, AURA Members Kellie Angel and John Dutton.

On the world scene I can’t not mention the amazing performance from Jasmin Paris at the Barkley Marathons. The first female in 38 years to complete the event and the world was watching, and we have not stopped talking about her achievement since! Outstanding!

Other news on the world stage is that next weekend we are hosting our own championships right here in Oz! The 24 Hour Asian Oceania Championships is only one week away and we are really excited here at AURA. This has been 4 years in the making and its so good to see it finally here. We hope you will all join us at the AIS in Canberra next week to watch it all unfold, support our Aussie 24 Hour reps as well as cheer on the runners that are taking part alongside them in the Open Race. It will be an amazing 24 hours.

Being a 24 Hour race and no doubt many of us will be having a sleepless night, I would like to briefly mention the tragic passing of Stephen Jackson after the 100km National Championships last month. This was a night event and like many ultra runners and volunteers do, we drove home tired after little to no sleep, and lost a great member of the running community. Please, take care of yourselves at any event that requires you to stay up all night, whether it be running, crewing, event directing or timing. There is nothing more important than getting home safely to your family. We again send our condolences to Jenn and Stephen’s family.

On the trail scene over the last 10 months we have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes building relationships with trail associations in Australia, and we are pleased to be forming an alignment which will bring trail and ultra running together. AURA has already built a strong foundation and legacy for ultra running, and by officially combining both we are recognising what AURA already does – 80% of our races listed are trail events. Having a unified body for trail and ultra running will strengthen what AURA has already built, and provide greater opportunities for athletes and members, as well as providing a consistent voice. Together, ultra and trail can achieve greater stakeholder engagement as a larger group, and AURA members will reap the benefits from a united and growing organisation. The formation of a unified ultra and trail organisation has the support of Athletics Australia, World Athletics, the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) and the International Trail Runners Association (ITRA). We are really excited about what’s to come so watch this space!

Also in the last 10 months, we have achieved some great milestones such as:

• Unprecedented membership growth
• The installation of a new, modern and more functional website
• We have brought in more benefits to members through our AURA Partners initiative
• We have introduced a new initiative by inviting applications for our great team of AURA Endorsed Coaches, who will take your running to the next level, no matter what level you are at now. This also supports businesses within the community.
• We are busy updating and streamlining our policies so that they are consistent and relevant to current international policies that affect our athletes and the organisation
• We have developed greater engagement with our states by creating individual state pages on social media to bring local communities together

So that is just some of the highlights, and we can’t forget that we have also sent four representative teams overseas to compete in the 100km Asian Champs (India), the 50k World Champs (India), the World Mountain Running Champs (Austria) and the 24 hour World Champs (Taipei). It’s been quite the year! These teams don’t just get there to compete with their exceptional running talents, its takes a combined effort from the committee, the selection committee, and the team managers to make sure all the ducks are in a row to get the teams safely and competently sent to these events – no small task I can assure you – and I thank my team for making it look seamless when in fact it is many hours of work and meetings.

Which brings me to the next item on our agenda after the Asian Champs – our next Annual General Meeting will be held on 28 May. It will be held on Zoom and links to the meeting will be sent out next month along with forms to vote and nominate on the committee positions for 2024.

So that’s a wrap for March – I wish you all a safe and happy Easter break and I hope to see many of you in Canberra next weekend!

Happy running!

Simone Hayes - President