{"id":181,"date":"2019-09-22T16:09:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T16:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/?p=181"},"modified":"2019-09-22T16:33:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-22T16:33:13","slug":"ben-nevis-ultra-scottish-and-english-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/news\/ben-nevis-ultra-scottish-and-english-wins","title":{"rendered":"BEN NEVIS ULTRA – Scottish and English wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Yesterday (Friday 20th), saw 330 runners from almost 40 countries worldwide compete over a challenging Highlands course of 52km. A sunny and exciting first day of mountain running at Salomon Skyline Scotland 2019 saw Scottish runner Murray Strain take gold in the Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra, while Yorkshire\u2019s Katie Kaars-Sijpesteijn triumphed for the women \u2013 and came home third overall.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Salomon BEN NEVIS ULTRA: Scottish and English wins<\/h3>\n

The mountain course took in a total ascent of 4000m and included an airy traverse of one of Scotland\u2019s most famous ridges, the C\u00e0rn M\u00f2r Dearg Ar\u00eate, leading to the summit of Ben Nevis.<\/p>\n

Murray Strain, from Tranent, East Lothian, was the first to cross the line in Kinlochleven, Lochaber, after 7 hours, 51 minutes and 31 seconds of running.<\/p>\n

Despite breaking a rib earlier this summer, the 36-year-old ran a well-paced race finishing more than nine minutes ahead of Spanish runner up Francisco Javier Cabrera Valdes (8:00:54).<\/p>\n

In third place in the men\u2019s race was Vincent Richrath, of Germany, in 8:14:56, although he was not quick enough to beat Katie Kaars-Sijpesteijn, the first female and third overall.<\/p>\n

Murray, who relocated to Cambridge, England, recently, said: \u201cThis win feels like a great success for me, especially after this summer’s injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also been difficult to find the right terrain for training now that I live in Cambridge. I am happy today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray an orienteering specialist is no stranger to the mountain racing podium, with wins including the Three Peaks Race in the Yorkshire Dales and the Snowdon Race in Wales.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he scored a top 10 in the World Long Distance Mountain Running<\/a> Champs.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWinning the Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra race today is especially nice because I wasn\u2019t sure how it would go and because it\u2019s part of the internationally renowned Skyline Scotland series.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie, originally from Yorkshire and now living in Cumbria, looked impressively comfortable as she stormed home in 8:05:28.<\/p>\n

The Salomon UK runner was well ahead of second placed female, America\u2019s Megan Arauzo in 10:13:03 and the third female, English athlete Katie Sloane in 10:28:31.<\/p>\n

Katie, 35, said: \u201cIt was exactly the sort of race course that I wanted and I thought the weather was perfect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a brilliant and absolutely awesome route and third place overall is a nice result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie is a regular on the mountain racing podium, taking third place in the Yorkshire Three Peaks this year and she is a previous winner of the Lakeland 50 and Lakes in a Day. She has also represented Great Britain in two World Trail Championships.<\/p>\n

Katie revealed that she felt ready to run in Scotland\u2019s mountains today. She said: \u201cI was raring to go this morning and my legs felt fresh. I’d had a bit of a break from racing beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I was in sixth place, then fifth place and then some guys appeared in front of me so I chased them. It was great to chase down the boys!\u201d<\/p>\n

What is Salomon Skyline Scotland?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The three-day Salomon Skyline Scotland plays out every September in Lochaber, in the mountainous heart of the Scottish Highlands.<\/p>\n

Friday saw more than 600 athletes compete in the Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra and the Salomon Mamores Vertical Kilometre (VK).<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s headline race is the Salomon Ring of Steal Skyrace, which is part of a fiercely competed Golden Trail World Series, and, on Sunday, it\u2019s the flagship Salomon Glen Coe Skyline race.<\/p>\n

There are also three new trail races \u2013 5k, 10k and 18k \u2013 launched for the 2019 edition of Skyline Scotland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday (Friday 20th), saw 330 runners from almost 40 countries worldwide compete over a challenging Highlands course of 52km. A sunny and exciting first day of mountain running at Salomon Skyline Scotland 2019 saw Scottish runner Murray Strain take gold in the Salomon Ben Nevis Ultra, while Yorkshire\u2019s Katie Kaars-Sijpesteijn triumphed for the women \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[87,7,1,110,109],"tags":[120,119,122,121,123],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-featured","category-news","category-trail","category-ultra","tag-120","tag-ben-nevis-ultra","tag-katie-kaars-sijpesteijn","tag-murray-strain","tag-skyline-scotland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":183,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.co.uk\/scotland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}