Earlier in the week we previewed the Great Ocean Walk 100km and today it’s the turn of the Hume and Hovell 100s in rural New South Wales. A beautiful track, run by the community this is one of those small, but perfectly formed events that tend to form the backbones of our community. Yes we may have the larger more commercial events, but it’s also important to support the smaller community events just as much.
While the fields not may be huge, there are quite a few runners (myself included), who really enjoy that. So here’s a preview of some of the names to look out for this weekend at the Hume and Hovell 100s.
In the miler, Stephen Redfern, Morgan Lindqvist and Melissa Robertson are probably the standout name across the male and female fields.
Stephen finished second here last year in just under 23hrs and then went on to finish third at Coast2Kosci a little on in 2016. With a preference for the longer stuff, he’s also posted 220kms in the Sydney 24hr track race as well as finished fourth at the GNW 100 miler in 23hrs 34mins too. There’s a lot of racing in those legs his year so it should be good battle upfront with the likes of Morgan and Melissa.
Morgan finished Six Foot Track in 3hrs 42mins earlier this year which saw him place just outside the top 10. He also finished second at the Mount Solitary Ultra too as well at tenth place at UTA in 10hrs 10mins. This will be his first step up to the miler distance and if his form is anything to go by this year, we could see a very good performance from him.
Melissa is the current ladies record holder for the GNW 100km and since then has had a string of solid results across all manner of distances. Earlier this year she won the Gone Nuts 50km, which is her only ultra race to date in 2017. Last year she finished second at Tarawera, fourth at the Mount Solitary ultra and fifth at the Buffalo Stampede.
Other names to watch out for include Jade Crim in the ladies and Mat Wall-Smith.
In the 100km event, it looks set to be a hot race between Mark Solari and Scott Baker. Earlier this year Scott finished fourth at the Buffalo Stampede 75km ultra and last year took out second at the GNW 100kms too in a time of 11hrs 51mins.
Mark won the Hume and Hovell 100 miler last year in a smoking 21hrs 48mins. The previous year he was second in the 50km version. For the ladies, Viv Johnston looks the pick of the bunch with solid performances at UTA in the past.
Best of luck to all runners this weekend.
