A unique running event that could see competitors in action for as long as a week is coming to Pyalong in November this year.
Dubbed the ‘King of the Hill’, the event is planned to begin at 12pm on November 2 and already has a full entry list of 100 competitors ready to take on the challenge.
The event will take place on a 3.2-kilometre loop that requires competitors to scale a large hill – hence the name – on the outskirts of Pyalong, with each competitor to complete one lap every hour.
With each lap lasting up to one hour and an elevation difference of around 300 metres, competitors will have completed the equivalent distance of scaling Mount Everest after around 20 laps.
The winner will be the last person standing after what could be multiple days of running one lap every hour, on the hour.
Organiser Ethan Fleming said he was excited to get the event up and running.
“Essentially it could go for anywhere between two to eight days depending on how long people can last, and obviously they’re going to have pretty much no sleep. It’s pretty brutal,” he said.
“There’s nothing in Australia, there’s nothing in the world that’s like this. This is the first of its kind.”
The entry list has been populated by runners from across Australia and overseas, while there will be arrangements for spectators including an online event livestream.
Mr Fleming said the novelty of a brand-new event helped to spread the word to a wide range of running communities.
“The concept kind of sold itself in the running community. It hasn’t been done before, so once we started spreading it in the ultra [marathon] community, it spread like wildfire as runners told more runners,” he said.
“We have every intention of doing it every year. Obviously, it’ll be interesting to see how it goes, but we have no doubt that it has a pretty good chance.”
There will be $10,000 on offer for the last person standing, a sum that Mr Fleming said was proposed to set the King of the Hill above other ultra-distance events and make the effort worthwhile.
“In the ultra world, there isn’t really a major event with a prize pool like this. One of the biggest ultra races in Australia only gives $1500,” he said.
“We have tried to do this so that runners can actually earn a lot of money from it, and it would be close to one of the highest prize pools in the world for ultra racing.”
