19 Feb: News Update
Confirmation of start location in Northam
We travelled out to Northam last Saturday and scouted out potential locations to start theevent. We have settled on a park at the bottom of Grey Street, in the centre of Northam, on the Southern bank of the Avon River. For those who know Northam, this is the same location as the start of the Avon Descent. It suits us as it provides good parking, toilet facilities, a covered gazebo, and a nice park. Competitors will now run from the start along the South bank of the Avon to the Newcastle Road traffic bridge, turn right here and then cross over the road at Mitchell Avenue. Follow the footpath on Mitchell Avenue until you hit the Kep track. This does add a few hundred metres to the course, however we lose a few with the new finish location (see below), so all should be about equal.
New finish line location
We also had a look at our options for the location of the finish. The actual end of the Kep track is opposite the Mundaring Weir Hotel, however other than a small car park, there are no other facilities or covered areas here. The Perth Hills National Park Centre campsite is only a short distance away, and provides toilets, showers, a covered kitchen with gas bbq and fridge, plus a huge covered area...all in all it's a perfect place to have the finish. We have booked out the camp site for the day and night of June 6, so all the facilities are ours to use. It's just off Allen Road.
There will also be a limited number of camp sites available, and if you feel like sleeping in a tent after running 75km or 100km, let me know. I'll be looking for a comfortable double bed somewhere though.
Race Approvals
We received some great news on Tuesday from the Shire of Mundaring advising they have approved our event application. We have also had further discussions with the National Trust regarding their approval process, and that is sounding promising also. I think our quest to make the race official is now looking pretty promising, which is terrific. There are still a number of hurdles we need to cross though, as soon as we know more we will let you know.
Recon run Northam to Clackline
A group of 5 runners ran the recon run last Sunday from Northam to Clackline. I had mentally painted a picture of all up hill to the Northam tanks, and then a gentle coast down hill to Clackline. Unfortunately I had forgotten about the VERY long hill up Eadine Road...you have been warned :)
11 Feb: Second recon run this weekend
This weekend is the second of the recon runs for the Kep Ultra.
The plan is to run 38km from Clackline to Northam and back on Sunday morning. This will give those running the Kep event a good look at the first 19km of the course. It's a mix of bitumen road, wide gravel tracks, and some single trail. This is the hilliest of the Kep Ultra stages.
Note that very hot weather has been predicted, with a min of 20 and max of 40 in Northam. Please bring adequate water (recommend 1.5 Litres plus). There are no drink stops or opportunities to refill between Clackline and Northam.
We'll start at 6:30am to try and avoid some of the heat. Meet on Sunday at the corner of Spencer Brook Road and Great Eastern Highway in Clackline. Shoot me an email if you're intending to come along.
11 Feb: Pre Qualification
Given that we are receiving a lot of interest from people about running the Kep Ultra at the moment, we thought we should make everyone aware that if the event receives the necessary approvals and become "official", there will be pre qualification requirements to enter the event. This is necessary because of the risk assesment plan we have had to lodge with our applications.
To enter either the 75km or 100km Kep Ultra events if the event achieves official status, in the three year period preceding June 6 2010, competitors will need to have either completed an official marathon in less than 4.5 hours, or finished an official ultra event (exceeding 42.2km) before the event's cut off time. Completion of other equivelant events such as an Ironman Triathlon will also be considered. Evidence of this may be required to be presented.
Should we not achieve official status, the event will be run "Fat Ass" style as a non official training run. Obviously as this would be totally non official, there would be no pre qualification required. That given, we would strongly suggest people consider not taking part if they had not previously achieved the pre qualification standards outlined above.
We thought we would get this out early so that if there are people who would not presently qualify to enter, that they have the opportunity to consider entering an event to qualify like the 40 Miler in Western Australia on Easter Monday.
4 Feb: First recon run this weekend
This weekend is the first of the recon runs for the Kep Ultra.
The plan is to run 30km from Mundaring Weir to Mt Helena and back. This will give 75km Kep runners a good look at the last 15km of the course. 100km event runners will experience the last 8km of their course.
Meet on Sunday ready for a 6am start at the Mundaring Weir Hall, corner of Hall Road and Weir Village Rd, Mundaring (opposite the Mundaring Weir Hotel).
If you want to run a shorter distance, you can always turn around earlier. Shoot me an email if you're intending to come along.
News 26 January 2010
Just a few things to report on the Kep Ultra. We now have 43 names down on the “interested” list, so it looks like we’ll have a good lineup taking part in the 100km and 75km events on June 6.
Recon Runs
Recon runs are planned as follows:
Sun - 7-Feb - Mundaring Weir to Mt Helena & back - 30km
Sun - 14-Feb - Clackline to Northam & back - 38km
Sun - 7-Mar - Wooroloo to Clackline & back - 48km
Sun - 18-Apr -Mt Helena to Wooroloo & back - 36km
Sat - 8-May - Mt Helena to Mundaring Weir Night Time Run - 42km
Information relating to start times etc will be provided closer to the date of each run.
100km route night time section
The weekend before last Aaron Pederson and I ran the last 22km section of the 100km route from Bellevue to Mundaring Weir. I wanted to take the opportunity to run this in daylight, to suss out whether there are going to be any likely tricky navigation areas in this section which for many runners will be run in the dark. I was especially concerned about the last 8km section from Mundaring to Mundaring Weir, as this was a little confusing in last year’s race even in daylight. I’m happy to report the Mundaring to Mundaring Weir section appears to have been extremely well signed with yellow Munda Biddi signs, which will be very difficult to miss. The only spot we found confusing was a 1.5km section through Greenmount National Park. We’ll make a note to flour arrows through this area.
Race Approvals
We are still working through the maze of approvals needed for the race, however I can report we received some encouraging news from the Shire of Mundaring last week, so things are looking a little more promising. As I have said before, if the approvals don’t happen, we’ll run in fat ass mode as last year.
2009 archived news
