Record tumbles at 15th annual Routeburn Classic
Record tumbles at 15th annual Routeburn Classic Adventure Run
The fact he had never walked – let alone run – New Zealand’s world-famous Routeburn Track didn’t deter mountain-running champ Jack Beaumont from blitzing the field in the Routeburn Classic Adventure Run.
The 19-year-old Queenstowner not only became the youngest ever winner of the race, but did it in 2hrs 37min 51sec, shaving an astounding six minutes off the previous record held by Welshman Hywel Dinnick.
Beaumont, who started mountain running just two years ago and recently won the New Zealand mountain running championships and the 3000m steeplechase title, said the 32km race was the ultimate trail race and “just right” for him.
“I’d planned to do a training run on the track but didn’t get around to it,” he said.
“It’s the most amazing race I’ve ever done, with perfect amounts of everything from uphill, technical sections and flat track, and you couldn’t have got a better day for it.”
In the lead from the start, Beaumont said he had no
idea how close the field was behind him and only struggled
with one rocky downhill section after the Harris
Saddle.
“I took that pretty carefully and was concerned
about slowing up too much because you can’t see how far
behind you people are, but in fact I finished about five
minutes ahead of the next guy.
“I’ll definitely be
back some time to improve on my record whenever I’m in the
country; it’s a pretty well-planned event with a really
nice community feel to it.”
First place women’s
runner Cecilia Flori from Italy, currently living in
Hamilton, added to her ‘outsider but one to watch’
status with her win in 3:25:30.
In February this year the
36-year-old took pundits by surprise after coming third in
the Tarawera Ultramarathon, where she revealed that she only
took up running two-and-a-half years ago.
Not
anticipating she would be fast enough to win the Routeburn
Classic over it’s much shorter distance, she said she was
“astounded” to have taken out top spot.
So sure was
she that she wouldn’t win, she planned to run (and did
40k) of the Kepler Track today (the day after the Routeburn
Classic) because she “just wanted to run”.
“I’d
already run 80km this week so I went into the Routeburn
Classic treating it as a hard training run,” she said.
“I was in third place for quite a bit and my hamstring
wasn’t very annoying, so around the 15k mark I was really
only just warming up.
“I had to stop a few times to
look at the waterfall and the lake because it was so
beautiful, then I picked up the pace to take second place. I
saw the front female runner t about the 4km mark so I really
just went for it.
“That was really the most beautiful
race I’ve ever run.”
Organiser Evan McWhirter said
runners had had the complete opposite experience to last
year when heavy rain and snow forced postponement of the
race by a day.
“This was a bluebird day and I love it
when a perfect plan comes together,” he said.
As with
all of the Routeburn Classic events, there was a ‘theme’
for the day – this year’s being ‘the adventure
fiesta’.
“All athletes received colourful rainbow
festive hair in their race packs and a performance by The
Muppets at the race briefing in Te Anau got them into party
mode,” said McWhirter.
“We always place runners in
categories and this year’s front runners were in the
Muppets category just so at the end of the race we could say
‘who was the fastest muppet’.”
At the post-event
medal presentation, ten five-year medals were handed out as
well as the Decade Club Perseverance Cup and the first
females joined that club – Korina Somerville from Winton
(she won the womens’ legends) and Sally Nicholl from
Dunedin who placed third.
Full results are here http://goodtimesevents.net/wp-assets/uploads/2017/04/Routeburn-Classic-2017.pdf
Main
results
were:
Mens:
1st Jack
Beaumont (Queenstown) 2:37:51; 2nd Ryan Carr (Lumsden)
2:42:34; 3rd Don Channon (Wanaka)
2:49:40
Womens:
1st
Cecilia Flori (Hamilton) 3:25:30; 2nd Tania McWilliams
(Christchurch) 3:27:07; 3rd Anna Fischer (Dunedin)
3:37:35