Sharon Gayter hopeful to bag the La Ultra – The High ultra marathon title: Athletics news
Sharon Gayter, the British athlete who is all set to run in the 222-km La Ultra – The High ultra marathon, has expressed her resolve to sustain her status of being the best English female ultra marathon runner for over 15 years. The veteran runner, who is
presently in India to train for the event which is merely two days away, has a number of plans to embark upon besides this formidable task in hand.
Knowing that she is not the only runner in form for the title, Gayter was still calm and confident of her strategy that she did not mind sharing. The only technique that has extended the emotional support for her during the course has been her focus on staying
quick.
Revealing her strategy to overcome strong fields during the course, she said, “My strategy is simple: go up quick and come back down quicker, beat Mark’s (Cockbain) time for last year and win the race. I have competed with Lisa (Tamati), Ray (Sanchez) and
Molly (Sheridan) at the Badwater in 2009, and finished ahead of them. In fact I know (winner of the High 2010) Mark very well; he has never beaten me.”
The La Ultra race, known as the High run, is only having its second edition this year, however, Gayter is quite positive about taking part in this meet. She of course has no doubts about prevailing in it and besides that, she thinks of it as one of the top
three races that she has ever run.
Sharing her thoughts, the British athlete said, “I think this might well become one of the top three races I have participated in. My most memorable race has to be in the Libyan Desert – it’s an unsupported race and I found it the hardest. Which is why I
ran that race twice.”
The runner, who is acknowledged for taking on hard running tasks, besides this 222-km long race, has also had the privilege of running in the end-to-end race, which stretches upon a distance of 837 mile across England and Scotland. Appearing at the end-to-end
track, she bagged the world record for the meet.
Gayter had kicked-off her professional running career back in 1994 and since then, she has participated in over a 1000 running challenges, which also include over a 100 ultra marathons. Analysing the potential of the runner in context of the given stats,
it is hard to say that she was not a runner by birth. Interestingly, more than her physique, it was her desire to be a renowned and successful runner that helped her assume the present status she has acheived.
Sharing details of how her passion led her to become a formidable runner, the athlete said that she used to be a lazy and unfit girl. However, undeterred by the physical hindrances, she never gave up her dream of becoming a successful marathon runner and
once she had achieved it, nothing could keep her from appearing on the track for long distance races until now.
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