UTA Elite Runners Preview
When fertility specialists told Scotty Hawker that being an elite ultra-distance trail runner was affecting his chances of becoming a father, he decided to step back from the sport he loves.
The 29-year-old Kiwi, who is now a resident of Katoomba in Australia’s Blue Mountains, gave up the gruelling training runs and the 100km races. And it has all paid off.
Hawker is looking forward to fatherhood and going one better than his effort last year in Australia’s most prestigious trail running event, Ultra-Trail Australia.
He believes that the long break he needed to take from trail running so his wife, Liz, could fall pregnant (their daughter is expected in late July) has also left him with the freshness to take out the marquee 100km race through the Blue Mountains bush on Saturday, May 14.
“It’s really been a blessing in disguise,” Hawker says of the career pause since coming second in last year’s UTA.
It was the proud Kiwi’s best ever result, but he only raced once afterwards, in Italy in June, before specialists told him that if he wanted to become a father he needed to restrict himself to “normal exercise … just doing a bit of walking and a 30-minute jog here or there”.
It was tough for a man who has always loved the buzz of extreme exercise, but Hawker followed their advice and by late last year Liz was pregnant.
Hawker then got back into training, but his body wasn’t happy. “I was walking up hills I would normally run up without blinking an eyelid,” he said. “I had all these niggles that let me know I had had a lot of time off.”
But Hawker persevered and now he feels like a stronger runner than ever before.
His training times have been “absolutely awesome” and in his one competitive run since coming back, the 45km Mount Solitary Ultra in the Blue Mountains on April 17, he finished a close second behind his good mate and training partner Jono O’Loughlin – another favourite for this year’s UTA 100km title – “with a bit of fuel in the tank … I think it’s on the card to have a pretty good run [in UTA on May 14].”
Hawker believes tough challenges will also come from the likes of 2012 UTA winner Ryan Sandes of South Africa and China’s Yun Yan-Qiao, who was third in last year’s UTA.
In the women’s field, favourites include Australia’s Beth Cardelli, who frequently trains in the Blue Mountains, and Li Dong of China, the first female to finish in UTA 2015.
Hawker is Christchurch product who was living in flat, hot Perth before deciding to move to the Blue Mountains last year to guarantee a landscape and climate that could help maximise his trail-running potential.
When Hawker raced UTA last year, he was cheered like a local hero rather than a Kiwi raider. If he were to go one better in 2016, they might just hear the roar at the Scenic World finish line in Katoomba all the way over in New Zealand.
As well as the elite fields gathered for the UTA 100km and 50km races on the Saturday, the running festival boasts a new 22km race this year from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba on Friday. It will also be hotly contested by some well-credentialed runners including Brendan Davies, Matty Abel, Aaron Knight and Lucy Bartholomew.
By Dan Lewis