RW’s Alana Doyle Conquers UTMB


Mike Finch |

ALANA 2
Alana and South Africa’s Armand du Plesis cross the finishing line together.

Runner’s World staffer Alana Doyle conquered the 170km Ultra-Trail Mont Blanc this weekend in a time of 38:17:35, finished 20th in the women’s race and 499th overall. This 170km loop race, known as the most difficult foot race in Europe, traverses the French, Swiss and Italian Alps and has more than 10 000m of climbing – which is higher than Mount Everest.

Xavier Thévenard won the men’s race in a time of 21:09:15 and Nathalie Mauclair won the women’s race in 25:15:33.

South African trail running legend Ryan Sandes, unfortunately had to withdraw after 40km due to illness. A dejected Ryan posted this on Facebook “UTMB this weekend and 2015 have not gone according to plan for me. I am super disappointed but I guess that is life. As a professional athlete, in terms of racing, 2015 will not go down as one of my highlights. I picked up Glandular Fever late in 2014 and I don’t think I have fully recovered from it. It’s important that I respect my body, realise something is wrong and give it the time it needs to recover. It’s always hard to take a step back, but in order to keep doing what I love I feel it is necessary to do this.”

Out of the 2300 starters, 1 631 finished this gruelling race. The oldest finisher was Christoph Gieger, 73 years old.

For a blow-by-blow account of Alana Doyle’s race, head to twitter.com/runnersworldza.

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