THE 2020 Ultra-Trail Drakensberg scheduled for this weekend has joined a long list of events cancelled amidst the unprecedented impact of the novel coronavirus, however that hasn’t stopped organisers from staging the first ever UTD Lockdown Edition this weekend.
UTD incorporates five different races from the iconic UTD160 to the DRJ21, so what the organisers have done is offer runners the option of doing ten percent of the distance at home as part of their UTD Lockdown Edition.
That means that anyone keen to enter the Lockdown Edition of the UTD160 will be entered to run a distance of 17,1km, the UTD100 will cover 10,8km, GCU62 is 6,2km, SDR32 is 3,2km and the DRJ21 translates into a very manageable 2,1km.
Alternatively the organisers have thrown down the bait of taking on the UTD Lockdown Edition Grand Slam which includes all of the distances, totalling 39,5km run over the weekend.
With the original event planned to take place over an entire weekend, a sixth event has been thrown into the mix, the UTDunlimited, this is a challenge for runners to see how far they can go from 10am on Friday to 7am on Sunday.
“This event is now well established and there was a big field really looking forward to the 2020 event,” said Running Man Adventures’ Spurgeon Flemington. “Once the lockdown was extended over the original event dates we realised that there was an opportunity to turn the existing disappointment into something positive.
“We also wanted to do something to ensure that the two organisations that are the main beneficiaries of Ultra-Trail Drakensberg, WildlifeACT and the Southern Lodestar Foundation, do not suffer unduly, so we have decided to stage the UTD Lockdown Edition with an entry fee of R0 but a voluntary donation to these two organisations.”
Flemington stressed that every participant will have to comply fully with lockdown regulations, meaning the run will have to take place in their own home or gardens.
He added that they were trying to adhere to the timing of the event that had been planned for the 2020 Ultra-Trail Drakensberg, but the entry was free and runners were free to run whenever they wanted to.
The entry fee into this weekend’s racing is a voluntary donation of the participants choice and will be split 50/50 between WildlifeACT and Southern Lodestar Foundation.
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