Race Report by Tom Brazier
The first Oceania Skyrunning race on Aussie turf — 45/36/22km options. The field looked relatively small due to being just 2 weeks before Buffalo—I assume most sensible people are tapering up for that. However, there were still enough of us out there to give the course and each other a good smashing. They changed the start/finish from the valley to the summit village this year, so the course basically consists of 15km undulations (Mt Stirling, Craig’s Hut, etc.), 15km descent (down to Mirimbah), 15km climb (up to Buller summit and village).
Mick Donges pulled out, still injured from Six Foot Track, and Coops wasn’t feeling it so he dropped to the 36km. I figured this left Dave Byrne and John Winsbury as the main competition and didn’t really rate my chances against them, but there was still a podium spot up for grabs! On the Saturday arvo I had a couple of MTB stacks while attempting the Bike Buller Epic trail—one of which involved stabbing my handlebar end into my rib cage—thankfully no major harm done, and I made it to the shuttle bus with a whole 3 minutes to spare. Phew!
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