The North Face 100
The North Face 100 reveals a new endurance champion for the 2009 edition
Diane Chanut - AROC Sport / 27.05.2009
Returning to the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains for the second year, the extreme endurance race was deemed a huge success and saw an incredible 333 solo runners and 31 pairs embarking on an exhausting but ultra-rewarding journey. They came from the four corners of Australia and beyond with runners hailing from across the Tasman, PNG, Hong Kong and Europe. Determined and geared up to face gruelling hours of running through the absolutely relentless terrain and rugged environment, the 395 ultra-runners departed on Saturday 16th at 7:00am in crisp and cold conditions, with blood pumping and feeling more alive than ever!Winner Andrew Lee, 39, from Warrimoo in the Blue Mountains, powered through the whole race and conquered the torturous distance in an amazing 10 hours, 20 minutes and 51 seconds beating last year’s record by only 2 minutes! Surprised by his stunning result as he had never run longer than 45 km in his life, the father of 4 was just hopeful of finishing around 11 hours.
“Winning and picking up the race record was a real bonus and I am pretty happy about that. I was in the Six Foot track marathon a few weeks ago, and that was a 45 kilometre race where I came second. After that I kept up some training for the Canberra marathon and straight after focused on The North Face 100 so I did a fair bit of trail running near by at home for the past 3-4 weeks, leading right up to the race. I didn’t know what to expect. I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be too hard, but it is a tough and gruelling course, relentless at times, particularly coming out of the Kadumba Pass up near Wentworth falls. It was a bit of pain coming up some stairs, I was getting sick of stairs towards the end; the last leg was really hard. Overall it was a really good day: the scenery is amazing, the organization very professional. I would recommend the course to anyone who is into this type of endurance.�
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