An increasingly rare event took place last Sunday, a road ultra ! Whilst trail ultras have been popping up at an alarming rate in recent years road ultras have seen a bit of a decline, probably health & safety being mostly to blame.
However this year Halstead Road Runners celebrated the 15th year of their marathon by introducing an ultra option to their popular marathon event. Starting 15minutes before the main event the same route is used with and additional 4mile loop to make the full 30mile course.
A select bunch of 33 runners made up the field for this inaugural event with Ian Longland (Haverhill RC) taking a convincing win in 3:29:40 some 20minutes ahead of second placed Leigh Barrenger (Colchester Harriers) with Kevin Day (Goyt Valley Striders) rounding out the top 3.
Helen Smith (shown as Unattached) was first out of only two ladies in the event coming home 10th overall in 4:13:59 with Trinity Booth (Thornbury RC) being the second placed other in 4:44:42.
Congratulations to Halstead Road Runners on what seems to have been a succesful and well received addition to their event.
Lets hope it becomes a regular event to replace one of several road ultras lost recently.
Full results can be downloaded from halsteadroadrunners.net