Carla Molinaro is having a great year. In April the British runner finished third in the Two Oceans ultramarathon, in June she was third at the hugely prestigious Comrades – the world’s oldest ultramarathon – and yesterday came the icing on the cake: a win at the IAU 50km World Championships.
'It's insane, it doesn't quite feel like I did that!' she told Runners World today. 'I am trying to enjoy it though. Training went really well, I had a really good group of guys to train with who were training for Cape Town marathon and I was training for this so it worked out pretty well.'
The Clapham Chasers runner, who divides her time between the UK and South Africa, finished over 40 seconds clear of Andrea Pomaranski of the USA in 3:18:22, while GB’s Sarah Webster – who broke the British 100K record earlier this year – claimed bronze.
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To put Molinaro's win into context, she averaged 6:23min/miles for 50km – so a 2:47 marathon, with another 8km at the end. And all done in the heat of Hyderabad, with temperatures reaching 30°C, on a 5km loop course.
"In terms of prep for the race, I was mainly training out in Cape Town, but then went to Dubai to do some heat acclimatisation with Gerda Steyn [the South African Olympian and two times Comrades champion] I trained for a couple of weeks with her, then I got out to India on Thursday night and basically just ate rice and chicken and stayed in my room until the race!'
Molinaro began her racing career as a triathlete, competing at three World Championships and winning her age group at the European Duathlon Championships, before moving her focus solely to running. She also holds the World Record for LEJOG – Lands End to John O’Groats – running the 1,327km in 12 days, 30 minutes and 14 seconds.
For the GB and NI women's team it was a fantastic day, with Anna Bracegirdle and Rachel Hodgkingson – both debuting at the 50km distance – coming in fourth and fifth.
