Welcome to the second in our previews for this weekend’s running. We’ve moved from the windy coast of Victoria to the melting pot up North and to Queensland where our focus for today is Australia’s longest standing 100 miler, the Glasshouse 100. There are a number of events across the weekend, but our focus for today will centre on the 100 mile and 100km events. There’s also a very competitive 50km event and I see a certain Stu Gibson (TNF100 winner) is listed as running, watch out for him and any course records up there.
We’ll begin with the 100 miler and of course, the ladies in the running for that…
To be perfectly frank, there’s a lady running this event that could quite possibly take out the whole thing, and that’s Deb Nicholl.
For me, Deb ran one of the best performances by an Aussie last year when she cracked 239km in 24hrs, which incidentally was the third best distance over 24hrs globally in 2013. Deb has pretty much won every race in Queensland and if in the right form could easily take out the whole thing ahead of some of the leading male contenders. To be honest, I’d love to see this happen, not just for Deb but for women’s ultra running in general. I might be wrong (and please do correct me if I am), but I don’t recall there being a lady in Australia that has won a 100 miler outright yet – here’s hoping Deb can change that.
Battling it out for the other podium places we think will be Natalie Hannah, Raelene Bendall and Delina Rahmate.
In the mens event there are two names that stick out as potential rivals to Deb taking out the miler and that’s speedster Anderson Moquiuti and Glasshouse stalwart Nigel Waddington. While Nigel has all the form and experience at Glasshouse with a number of sub 20 hour finishes to his name, Anderson has the speed to burn with a number of wins over the 50km distance in and around Queensland.
But there are a few other guys who will be vying to take out the podium places in Laurie Lane and Cameron Munro. And lest we forgot a certain wily old guy by the name of Wayne ‘Blue Dog’ Gregory, who after a few years of injury looks to be back on the comeback trail with a few good performances of late. Ignore this man at your peril, tough as boots and will fight to the end 🙂 Good luck mate, great to see you back running the big ones.
Glasshouse 100kms
Moving onto the 100kms event and if I’m honest, it’s anyone’s game in this one. Many it appears are having their first crack at 100kms, which is great to see, and having gone through every runner and their form, it’s also clear that a lot of people are trying their hand at 100kms having done one of the previous 50kms events at Glasshouse too. Great to see.
In the ladies, there are a few Glasshouse regulars that could take out the prize in Mallani Malloney, Tamyka Bell or Lisa Spink – these ladies have thousands of Glasshouse kilometres between them. Danielle Lambert is another name that pops up as a potential podium getter too along with Japanese runner Takayo Sakidara. In the mens event, six names stick out for the title. Ben Malby, Tom Hunt, Sean Lyons, Shane Simpson, Greg Truloff and Trevor Warburton.
Finally, before we sign off we’d like to add a note about Roger and Jill Guard who lost their lives on flight MH17 recently. I’ sure there will be a big gap felt at this year’s race where Roger was a Glasshouse stalwart, with 30 finishes to his credit and second on the all time list of finishes. He’s also fifth on the list of most kilometres run at Glasshouse with over 2,000.
Both Roger and Jill were central figures in the Toowoomba community, working in the medical profession – If you’d like to donate to their chose charity, feel free to do so here.
