Ultra Trail Australia (UTA50) 2018 First Timer Race Report

In the weeks leading up to Ultra Trail Australia 2018 registrations opening Sean and I toyed with the idea of signing up for the 100.

“It might hurt… but we could do it.. couldn’t we?”

We’d both finished a few road half and full marathons, as well as city 2 surf and the usual Sydney fun runs, so naturally going longer was the next step. And we were excited about it. And then we ran the 2017 Blackmores Marathon. Or should I say we ran part of it. We both DNF’d (due to being really under the weather), and such by the time UTA registrations rolled around we both signed up for the 50k and that was daunting enough.

We followed a training plan from Krissy Moehl‘s book; Running Your First Ultra.​ It was super helpful and great to look back on to confirm to ourselves that we were on or at least near the right track, and we had been putting in the right miles.

For start group seeding we used our ITRA (International Trail Running Association) ratings. I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of these and wasn’t aware we had them until UTA shot around an email saying they could be used for seeding. It turns out the Sydney Trail Series runs at Manly Dam we’d completed over this Summer gave us a rating and Sean was slotted into Group 1 and I was in group 2. We were both pretty chuffed with this, and it meant on race day I’d be starting only 7 minutes after Sean, so not too much waiting around in the cold Blue Mountains Air.

Fast forward to May 19 2018, Game Day, and it was scary. Exciting, but scary. And that cold Blue Mountains air was cold. Really, really cold.

FYI: This is a more like a Race / Entire weekend in the Blue Mountains Report as well as some general info about the event itself. Click HERE to go straight to Saturday if you want just my take on the 50k race.

Or if you’re just interested in the gear I used, click HERE

Sean and I headed up to the Mountains on Thursday night. We checked into our campsite (we were sleeping in our van for the weekend) and headed to the Fairmont Hotel. We had bought tickets to the Trails in Motion Film Festival screening for that evening and it was great. I highly recommend catching one of the screenings around Aus, all the films were awesome.

In particular Patagonia’s film Takayna about the Tarkine Rainforest in North Western Tasmania was a great one to get people thinking about the impact as individuals can have when we use our voices together. And better yet, how runners have been helping out! This area looks absolutely beautiful, and pretty unique for an Australian landscape. Travelling to Tasmania was already very high on our list, and some of the footage in this film has seriously bumped a Tassie road trip right to the top of our “what to do next” list. Watch the film for free when it comes out and sign the petition to gain World Heritage List Status for the Tarkine here.

Friday morning we woke up and went for a little jog, just to check the legs were still working after tapering. The legs were good and the views were even better, every time we come up here I’m always enthralled with the beauty of this place.

After our run we headed into Katoomba for some breaky before going back to Scenic World and the UTA expo to watch the Pace22 winners cross the line. The Pace 22 winners were incredible. Both the male and female records were smashed, the mens by 7 minutes and the womens by something like 14… which is absolutely INSANE over a 22k race. 

We went up to the expo, picked up our bibs and checked out the stalls. We wandered around with our friends Fi & Linda (Hi guys!) Headed back to camp to make lunch – BBQ tofu & salad rolls never tasted so good! We then packed our race bags ensuring we had all the mandatory gear (there’s a shit load of mandatory gear even for the 50…) Later that night we went to the compulsory race briefing before heading back for an early dinner – minestrone –  and sleep. 

Saturday morning we woke up early. As in at 4:30am. Sean was in the first group of the 50k runners and I was in the 2nd so we started at 6:32 and 6:39 respectively. We got out of out sleeping bags and into our race gear with a few extra warm layers thrown on over the top and headed up to the communal camp kitchen for breakfast.

Before a race we aways have the same thing Porridge. Oats, chia seeds, linseeds, walnuts and bananas or berries topped with a cheeky dash of brown sugar and soy milk. It warmed us up and gave us some protein to start the day. We both hit the loo a couple of times (standard for all runners thanks to pre-race nerves) and then walked to the start line. We were staying at the Katoomba Falls Tourist Park and it was literally 400m from the start line! 

We bumped into a few friendly faces, said our hellos and good lucks before watching the 100k runners take off. It was finally here, and it was exciting! Before we knew it it was time for Sean to line up and then myself.

The race begins with a 7km or so road section. It’s hillier than it looks on the elevation graph and it was important to remind myself to keep it cruisy, the harder (much harder) terrain was coming and the last thing anyone wants to do is burn themselves out early on a couple of road hills.

The road section worked well for self-seeding the people and meant that for majority of the course ahead there was very little waiting or bottlenecks.

At around 6km you come back past Scenic World and the start of the run to a big crowd that cheers you on, it’s early on but it stills feels great to have people smiling and clapping for you. 

​After the road section we ran along the Prince Henry Cliff Walk around to Echo Point and down the Giant stair case. This was nice easy trail terrain and for the most part people were moving pretty well. A couple of slow moments on steeper sections but traffic basically flowed all day. The Giant staircase was the first section where I was going a lot slower than I’d have liked, but that was to be expected with lots of people and a really steep set of stairs. Being a trail race they don’t close off sections of trail to the public, so racers are expected to share trails with the other hiker out there. Luckily we were in early groups and didn’t encounter any issues here at one of the busiest locations in the Blue Mountains. Needless to say, the view was great!

​Once at the bottom of the staircase we ran down Dardanelles Pass through to Leura Forest at a good pace before reaching Leura Cascades (a seemingly never-ending section of stairs, going back down, more stairs, down again and then finally heading up).

I personally think Leura Cascades is more difficult than the Furber Stairs however we’d only run about 11km when we reached these stairs, whereas when you reach the Furbers you’ve done 49.. or worse 99 if you’re doing the 100!

Right before the cascades I managed to roll my ankle a little bit. Note to self, don’t turn around to chat to people whilst running on semi-technical trail… It hurt quite a bit but seemed to disappear from my thoughts once I began climbing the stairs. Thank goodness!

Once at the top of the cascades we carried on along the prince Henry Cliff Walk, across the sky bridge around to Gordon Falls and onwards to the Fairmont, the first water stop at 17.2km.

The Fairmont had a fair few people cheering us all on, always a welcome sight and sound after any distance run. I popped a couple orange hydralyte* tablets in my flask, refilled my water and headed onwards. 

* Note these are not the real hydralyte brand.. Sean and I found a product with the very same ingredients at Aldi for a quarter of the price. Speaking of Sean, here a few photos of him over the next section of trail (From Fairmont to Wentworth Falls) he passed by the photographers roughly an hour before me, potentially even more!

The next section from The Fairmont on to Wentworth Falls is some of the more technical and resultantly for most is a little  slower going. This however is my favourite kind of terrain. I’m slow on road, however I don’t seem to slow down too much on trail so it means if I’m lucky and having a good day I can catch and overtake a few people on this kind of terrain. Rather than eating their dust on tarmac. It’s always good for the head space when you over take a few people rather than be overtaken!

Around Wentworth Falls I noticed a little twitch medially on my right knee, it felt like the warning signs of cramping. I popped a salt tablet in my mouth and sucked on it for the next 5 or so minutes. I don’t know if these really work or if the effect is just placebo, but either way it seemed to make the twitch go away (or at least trick me into forgetting it) and so I continued on without any cramping. 

I hustled on and got to the Queen Vic checkpoint. I again refilled my flask and headed onwards to Leg 2 of the course. Straight down Kedumba and almost straight back up the other side. The home stretch, no pulling out now!

Running down Kedumba is generally either looked forward to or feared greatly. If you’re a good downhill runner, and you’ve put in the training such that your quads won’t die on you it’s awesome, a long stretch of downhill with no stairs.. You beauty! However if you haven’t done much downhill training it can be a frustrating long, slow, toe-destroying trudge. 

I’d done a few training runs with Kedumba incorporated so I knew what was coming, and I was mostly looking forward to it. A break from going uphill! I ran the whole way down however I’m pretty sure the road was longer this time than any other time I’d run it. I was certainly happy to see Jamison Creek at the bottom.

Here’s a couple of photos from a training run down Kedumba, just to give an idea of the beauty, even if it is quad-destroying.

The next 8ish kilometres to the Sewage Treatment Works was mostly uphill, with a few annoying downhills (we can’t seriously be going down this just to go up again right?). However, to be honest, after the seemingly never-ending downhill of Kedumba it was nice to be breaking it up. Sometimes the thought of going uphill is exciting because it means you can walk! This whole next section is pretty beautiful and boasts some awesome views of the three sisters. Sometimes you forget to just take in where you are, and where we were on this run is pretty stunning.

I stopped quickly at the Emergency Aid station at the helipad (41.2km) and refilled my soft flask for the 3rd and final time, I then carried on for one of the longer climbs of the entire event. Just before the sewage treatment works I noticed a twitch in my quad and sucked on another salt tablet. Again it magically made the twitch go away.

The last section up from the Sewage Works is actually really nice, and for the most part (pretty much until the Furber Steps) pretty runnable! It’s soft easy trail with a few tiny stairs thrown it. And again, like the entire course, it’s beautiful. 

I ran majority of this entire last section through Leura Forest except for a few hills that I hiked at what I thought was a quick pace, in hindsight I’m sure it was a little sloth like. None the less I made it to Furber steps, and onwards to the finish line.

Those steps were so much damn harder than I remembered, but that finish was far sweeter than I could have ever imagined. 

Sean finished with a time of 5:47 and I finished with 6:55. We were both pretty stoked! Sean had hoped to go quicker but suffered pretty bad cramps from about 15k in and had to walk a lot more of than he’d have liked.

There’s always next year! We’ll be back.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching our friends finish. It was such a buzz to see everyone at the end of their race after reaching their goals. It felt great! Everyone did amazingly well and the whole weekend was so much fun with such a great crew! Myself, Sean, Lisa, Rob, Beau & Linda all did the 50 whilst Fi, Andrew & Brian smashed out the full 100k! 

Sunday morning Sean and I woke up feeling pretty good, we got out of bed, showered and made some breakfast. Yes you guessed it; porridge & tea again.

We headed over to Scenic world and grabbed a couple of coffees. As well as watching people still coming in from the 100k race it was time for arguably the most important run of the weekend (and 100% the cutest); the Injinji 1km Kids race. We watched the grommets running around having a ball and found our friends (Hi everyone!). A few of the girls Lisa and Fiona had placed 1st and 2nd respectively in their age groups so we were there to cheer them on (and get some great shots) as they climbed the podium!

A special shout out to all these beautiful people for making our weekend (and the training lead up) so much fun, easy and enjoyable!

Ultra Trail Australia is known for being a beautiful and super tough race, but it is also nearly as well known for it’s extensive mandatory gear list for both 100 and 50km events. 
See below for what I specifically carried to meet the gear requirements for the 50km. Light = fast, but also remember that you might need to wear some of these things in an emergency situation or even on a freezing race morning so it’s pretty important to get some good kit. Whilst we’re not ones for spending pennies wastefully, for some kit items it can be worth dropping the extra cash for quality. Try to think of it as an investment, because if like us you catch the trail bug you’ll have good gear to take on training runs and races for years to come. 

Mandatory Goodies:

• ​Kathmandu 100% Merino long sleeve thermal top
• Patagonia Storm racer Jacket – Super lightweight!
• Camelbak Ultra 10 Vest – 2L Hydration Pack & 1 x 500m Flask (Only needed ability to carry 2L but I like the accessibility of a flask in front for easy refill)
• Blue Mountains Running Co Buff (Thanks Shayne!)
• Kathmandu Emergency Space Blanket
• Black Diamond head torch
• Compass
• Whistle (attached to pack)
• Mobile Phone, map, directions etc.

All the rest:​​

• Patagonia Duckbill Trucker Cap
• North Face Endurus Trail Running Shoes (Love these! I never get sore toes!)
• GU chews – I ate 5 packs (10 serves, 1 serve just before we started and then pretty much every 45 minutes after)
• Aldi hydration tablets – I like the orange
• Salt Tablets (Seemed to help me out, but didn’t work for Sean, placebo or not I’ll take them to my next event)