Ultra-Trail Drakensberg Lockdown Edition exceeds expectations
A total of 1200 runners took on the lockdown event in a welcome show of solidarity.
WITH the cancellation of the fourth edition of Ultra-Trail® Drakensberg due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers came up with the UTD Lockdown Edition which proved to be a resounding success with just over R100 000 raised for Wildlife ACT and the Southern Lodestar Foundation.
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A total of 1200 runners took on the lockdown event in a welcome show of solidarity for the cancelled event and rallying support for the events two benefactors.
The ultimate prize went to Tobie Reyneke and Debbie O’Mahoney who completed the longest distance over the event time frame.
Reyneke completed 171km in 31 hours 58 minutes, while O’Mahoney finished 165km in 36 hours.
UTD Lockdown Edition took the five different events scheduled for the Drakensberg’s toughest trail running event and divided the distances by ten to give runners distances to cover in their gardens over the same period that UTD would have taken place.
With runners taking on 17,1km was the equivalent to UTD160 while the other events were scaled down to 10,8km, 6,2km, 3,2km and 2,1km.
There were also options to run the UTD Lockdown Edition Grand Slam which converted into 39,5km and every distance on offer while others opted to take on UTD unlimited which was a challenge to see how far you could run from 10am on Friday to 7am on Sunday.
“We were overwhelmed by the support of all the runners to our UTD Lockdown Edition,” event organiser Spurg Flemington said.
“To see so many people taking on the event in their gardens, balconies, garages was inspiring and we are proud to be handing over the proceeds to our beneficiaries. As a community we have come together to help those in need and it was a display that we cannot underestimate the impact this will have,” he said.
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