Starting with Saturday, October 27 the inaugural Salming Runningworks Ultra 50k was held at The Spectacles over in WA, just 33-kilometres south of Perth, where runners completed laps of an Aboriginal heritage trail either in a 50k, 21.1k, or 8k distance.
For its first year, the ultra saw fantastic entrant numbers, with 20 participants in the 50k event and it was a fierce competition between two of the state’s finest ultra runners in Tony Smith from Tapping, WA and Henley Brook’s Margaret Hadley (WA) – both pictured.
Smith took the crown in overall first place after an intense time of 3:33:31, with Hadley right behind him and claiming first for the women/second overall in 3:44:17. Her time ended up being her new PB after shaving 12min off a previous race as well as catching a new marathon time.
With an early morning chill that soon disappeared thanks to the Perth weather heating up, well rounded efforts were performed by all participants. Congratulations also goes to Nicholas O’Neill (5:10:01), Mark Caldwell (5:46:29), Graham Bell (6:25:31), Fee Salmons (6:51:21) and Louise Wallace (7:24:35).
