Every Saturday morning Alison Whitehead goes for a run around Mount Isa with a group of friends, ending with coffee at McDonalds and a feeling of satisfaction.
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“Saturday morning is the highlight of my week because I get to run in the daylight, and with other people," Alison said.
Things are turning serious for the local running group, many of whom have started training for the UTA Ultra Trail Australia in May.
Set in the beautiful Blue Mountains, the trail runs were started by two ex Mount Isans. Alison said every year is like a Mount Isa reunion.
“When I go to UTA, the people who owned the gym are often there helping out, I catch up with Tom and Elena who run the event, and volunteers who live in various places like Townsville. It’s a great time to spend with them.”
“Tom and Elena used to come to the Saturday morning run groups, and they are really excited to see Mount Isa doing something different, getting out there and supporting them as well,” Alison said.
Ultra Trail is well supported in Australia, with more than 1500 runners in each event and more than 4500 runners altogether.
Our runners will need to scale large staircases of rock to reach their final destination – a tough ask when you’ve been training on desert flats all year.
The local running club started at defunct local gym, Fitness Warehouse, which is now Body Balance. When the owners were busy with other projects, Alison kept the running group going.
Twenty years on and she still enjoys the Saturday morning runs with her good friend, Rick Leeman, and a troupe of runner buddies.
“On Saturday we started at Buchanan Park car park and went for a run out to what we call dump hill and then through all the horse paddocks, wherever we can find dirt,” Alison said.
“I prefer to run on dirt than bitumen. Regardless of where we start, we usually head to a bush location.”
Alison credits newcomers like Alice Moncrieff for inspiring others to take up running, and sign on for the UTA.
“I often get so much from seeing people achieve something like the UTA 50 that they never thought was possible,” Alison said.
“Alice had only just started running. She put in a good seven months of hard work training for the event, and now all her friends are signing up. Her whole life has changed from doing this one event.”
Entries opened last week for the 100km race and on Thursday for the 50km, both of which have now sold out.
Five Mount Isa runners will be tackling the 100km, Alison Whitehead, Rick Leeman, Carlyn Rogers (with her dad), Chris Pocock, and Adam Chapman.
Around 20 runners will go for the 50km trail run, still an epic slog.
Tickets are on sale for the UTA 22km on Friday, October 5.
