In 1985 Tony Hunt and Jan Turner first proposed a new and ground breaking race; the Everest Marathon. This came to fruition in 1987 with the help of a lot of dedicated people and a bunch of lunatics who wanted to run it. After the 1989 Everest Marathon Jan went off on other adventures, returning to Nepal in 1991 to organise a new race; The Annapurna Triathlon (Which he designed and John Williams and Jack Maitland rationalised and Jane King administered and Ramesh Bhattachan made happen) They organised this race for 7 years until the organisers went their various ways. Jan had, whilst this was all going on, been able to create the Kathmandu Marathon which he organised for 2 years.
In 1995 on a course that Jan designed, Tony Hunt measured, Ramesh Bhattachan rationalised and with the support of Sir Ian Botham and Nike UK; twelve local runners proved that a run from Pokhara to Poon Hill and back was possible in less than 12 hours. The route normally would take an average trekker 5 days. The winner took 11 hours 55 minutes and 55 seconds. The Annapurna 100 was born; the World’s toughest 100km race.
And then on the 10th of April 2010 came the first Everest Ultra, concieved by Jan Turner and organised by Ramesh Bhattachan and pioneered by 15 runners. Starting at Gorak Shep and finishing in Lukla. Starting at -5 degrees and finishing at 90 degrees it goes from a height of 18,000 feet down to 8,497 feet before climbing back to 9,380 feet. Going from glacial moraines, ice, rock, precarious bridges to trekking paths, forests, river beds and rural farmland, this is surely the greatest race on the planet.
Results 2010
- Sudip Kulung Rai 5:14:30 – Local Porter
- Bed Bahadur Sunuwar 5:16:25 – Nepal Army
- Aite Bahadur Tamang 5:40:01 – Nepal Army
- Raj Kumar Basnet 5:41:07 – Nepal Army
- Chhitij Kulung Rai 5:47:05 – Local Porter
- Upendra Sunuwar 7:21:02 – Sindhuli
- Bhim Bahadur Gurung 7:35:06 – Dang
- Sonam Tamang 7:53:04 – Nepal Army
- Gopal Magar 8:06:09 – Namche
- Raj Man Maharjan 8:26:03 – Lalitpur
- Narayan Acharya 8:55:07 – Jumla
- Basanta Rai 10:32:00 Nepal Army
- Shankar Shah 10:32:00 Pokhara
- Jan Turner 14:55:00 UK
- Yogendra Bhattachan 16:30:00 Baglung Veteran
- Ramesh Bhattachan 16:30:00 Pokhara Veteran
