NSW elite orienteers have had stunning results overseas in the past week in major endurance races.
Andrew Hill (WHO) on May 1 won the annual Great Wall of China Marathon. His GPS recorded 1873m of climb, but Andy's not sure how accurate it is on stairs.
This marathon is based at the Jinshanling section of the wall. The majority of this marathon is on the actual wall itself with 20,518 countable stairs. Andy rose at 2am from his hotel in Beijing.
The course consisted of six loops from the start/finish area. The trail was rough going: it was either up or down with no flat sections. Staircases would usually wind up to a tower generally based on the top of each hill. On one such staircase to a tower called the Stairway to Heaven was a 400m climb with a 60o ascent and stairs up to 40cm high.
On the second loop the two runners who had tried to stay with Andrew cracked and withdrew. Although temperatures were reaching near 30C, Andrew was still managing to keep a good pace running both up and down the stairs. The biggest issue now was battling the hordes of tourists which got to a tight squeeze in the corridors and of the towers. Spurred on by being in the lead and running in such an amazing scenic area, Andrew was able to complete the final small loop in the lead and 45 minutes ahead of second place.
Over in the US, Victoria-based Rob Preston (Newcastle, right) was in the winning team at the Shenandoah Epic Adventure Race in Virginia.
Guaranteeing 13 hours of toil - and 27 for Rob's team of elites as they chased bonuses - the race featured a long paddle to start the race, a day time orienteering course, a day time MTB course followed by a rogaine-style night course with biking and a night orienteering course.
No word yet as to whether they were singing along to John Denver to keep them going. Read more about this race on the team web page.
And in Sweden, top-ranked Australian male orienteer Julian Dent (Central Coast) ran a phenomenal 2nd leg as his IFK Lidingo team finished second in the annual 10MILA.
This is a 108km, 10-person relay starting on Saturday evening, and finishing with the winners running in on Sunday morning.
Julian went out in 52nd place and returned in the lead! It was only on the last leg that the Lidingo runner was overtaken by the Finnish favourites.
Read more about Julian's efforts on the Stingers' blog.
