RUTH CROFT | Kiwi ultramarathon runner on conquering Diagonale des fous

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Scotty (0:15)

Time though, for something completely different, and we head to one of my all time New Zealand sporting heroes, Ruth Croft is on the line.

SPEAKER_3 (0:23)

Ruthie, morning.

Ruth Croft (0:25)

G'day guys, how you guys doing?

Scotty (0:27)

Well, we're doing good. More importantly, how are you doing? You've won another race. I can't even pronounce it, let alone run it.

SPEAKER_3 (0:33)

180 Ks through the island of Reunion.

Scotty (0:38)

Tell us about your latest victory, Ruth.

Ruth Croft (0:41)

Yeah, it's called Diagonal of the Foo, which means diagonal of the cross the island, and it's of the diagonal of the crazies, which is pretty accurate.

Scotty (0:54)

180 Kms as mentioned, around about 10,000 metres of climbing, I think Ruth, would that be about right?

Ruth Croft (1:02)

Yeah, 10,000 of climbing and descending, yep.

Scotty (1:05)

Okay, well that is ridiculous for starters, but you've added UTMB, you've added Western States, now the Diagonal of the Foo as well on Reunion. For those who don't know where that is, it's in the middle of nowhere, near Madagascar and Mauritius, which would have been a hell of a place to get to. How did you get to there for starters?

Ruth Croft (1:25)

It's actually not too bad. You can fly to Sydney, then to Perth, then Perth to Mauritius, and then Mauritius. It's just a 50-minute flight from there. It's not actually too bad compared to going to Europe.

Scotty (1:38)

Ruth, it wasn't too long ago where you thought about defending your UTMB, which is the Ultra Child Mont Blanc, one of the most famous, if not the most famous, ultra runs in the world, and decided as you got close to the event that, nah, you just weren't feeling it. Can you explain how that all came about and the reasons for deciding to pull out of the race?

Ruth Croft (2:01)

I just came home for some family reasons. And so, yeah, I just made the call. It was two days before. And then, yeah, I flew back to New Zealand and then kind of decided to pivot from there. I was back on the coast for about a month. And then, it's kind of near the end of our season, so there's not a lot of races around. But Dagg and Old Defu, honestly, I never actually really wanted to do it. Because I've always been so intimidated by it.

But not lining up for UTMB, it kind of opened that up and gave me an opportunity to do something different. Because most of the past four years, I've just been focusing on UTMB. So it's actually been quite nice to, yeah, do a different race and discover a new island as well.

Scotty (2:41)

Izzy's been crunching the numbers, Ruth. So I'll hand over to Izzy Dagg.

Izzy Dagg (2:44)

Oh, look, I just thought I'd get really weird about it, and I'll go through. And obviously 100 Ks divided by 27 and 13 hours.

27 hours and 13 minutes is approximately 6.61 kilometers per hour. You were doing, what was it, 101.84 meters per second, 4.11 miles per hour. So outrageously, it was crazy. And you beat the next best by an hour and 13 minutes. So you made it look easy. Can you talk to us about the race and how difficult was it? Was there any moments where hypothermia might have struck you again?

Ruth Croft (3:23)

Again? Thanks.

Actually, it started at 10 PM and you start down by the ocean. And then, so you kind of go through quite a lot of different climates. And so first kind of 55 K, you're essentially climbing up. And then it just got into like a bit of a bog pit and just super technical trail. We just like running over a rock salad for 25 K. And then you kind of climb up to it's called like the caldera of the volcano. You drop into what's called Mifat. And it's just really kind of, I'd say pretty inhospitable in there. Gets pretty hot.

And yeah, you don't see your crew too much in there. And we had about, I think it was 40 or 50 K. And then you're going to got to climb out of this caldera again. And then you get to the top of it, and you still got 60 K to go. But just pretty much felt terrible for the first 65 K. And then a little less terrible. And then felt good for the last 60 K. So yeah, I was able to get cranking in the last part of the race. That's amazing.