For many this past week was the start of their taper into Ultra Trail Australia and we thought there might be a drop off in volume and elevation, however that wasn’t really the case. The top 50 for volume this week were all over 60km and the top 50 for elevation were all over 1,000m.  There wasn’t as much racing this week as last week but still a few races on across the country with the big multi location Mother’s Day Classic on Sunday throughout Australia.  South Australia also had an ultramarathon event, the Hubert 100 in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges.  

Now if there was ever a case to run laps of your driveway or a carpark just to round up your total, then I think Margie Hadley had the prime opportunity to do so this week.  Margie topped the distance leaderboard with 199.9km for the week! Now cracking 200km for the week is not uncommon for Margie but for us mere mortals the opportunity wouldn’t come around too often, if ever! Seriously though Margie well done on another massive week of training.   

In second place with week, was Brad Tilley who ran a massive 190.7km for the week.  Brad had a big week, with a huge chunk of his milage coming in the above-mentioned Hubert 100 mile race.  

Third place on the distance leaderboard was Michael Hooker.  Michael finished the week with 159.5km.

Elevation this week is where I though we might see a bit of a drop off compared to last week as we have some big hilly ultramarathons coming up.  This definitely wasn’t the case for Eve Lanoux.  Eve has taken out top spot this week with a big 5,523m of climbing.  Eve had a run in Nerang Forrest known as the ‘Goat Royale’ which is a combination of five different loops to make up a 72km, 3,000m elevation run. 

In second place was Sam Fletcher with 4,544m of elevation in just 4 runs.  There must have been some super steep runs in there Sam! 

John Newman was in third spot on the elevation leaderboard this week with 1,350m.  Which included a loop of one my all-time favourite trails, The Warrie Circuit at Springbrook! Next time you’re up this way John we’ll have to get a run in together.  (FYI the offer stands for everyone!) 

Another big week in the bank for many of you.  For those racing a big focus race in the next few weeks I wish you all the very best with your race whether it’s UTA, DU135, West Macs Monster or one of the many other races happening in May.  Also if you’re into writing race reports we’d love to throw them up on our website for others to read! 

The full Top 5 Leaderboards are available on our website: https://hillbillyendurance.com.au/pages/hillbilly-endurance-run-crew

Righto the Epic Run of the Week this week goes the 160km effort at the Hurbert 100.  We mentioned him before; it’s Brad Tilley.  

Brad took on the 100mile event at Hurbert 100, the longest of the four distances on offer.  The 100mile course is kind of out-and back route that goes through the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park in South Australia.  The course does deviate on the way back for a while before re-connecting with the ‘out’ part of the course.  

The Hubert 100 start line is around 150km north east of Port Augusta and for the most part that area looks like desert full of red dirt.  The Ikara-Flinders Ranges does have some vegetation, but it still looks very desert-like judging by the satellite images.  Brad took on and conquered the 100 mile event and I’m sure he had some support and company from some of the awesome crew from the Millicent Runners in SA.  

Well done Brad on a great accomplishment in finishing the race and I’d love to hear more about the Hurbert 100, I think it might be one to put on the race bucket list.  We will be in touch to hook you up with a 25% off discount to use at hillbillyendurance.com.au

We’re sure to see some fantastic runs over the next few months with a pretty stacked racing calendar.  Make sure you let us know about your epic runs by tagging @hillbillyendurance in your Facebook and Instagram posts or even send as a message with a link to your Strava if you don’t want to post on socials.  

We will again be picking an Epic Run of the Year and sending out a prize pack.  We will pick the winner from our weekly winners so make sure you let us know about your runs!