The Event
On October 31st 1995 Sir Ian Botham, World renowned cricketer, started a new 100k race - possibly the most difficult 100k race in the World.This race was first thought up in Dec 1983, whilst Jan Turner was rushing back to Pokhara from Tatopani, in a pair of Doc Martens shoes, with a back pack. In 1985 Tony Hunt and he dreamed up the Everest Marathon which 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 in 1991 to organise a new race; The Annapurna Triathlon (Which he dreamt up and John Williams and Jack Maitland rationalised and Jane King administered) 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.
Due to the ten years of political turmoil we were unable to organise this event safely. Now that peace has returned to this beautiful country we are back. We are organising this event to develop and promote Nepalese Long Distance Runners.
The Annapurna 100 can be tackled as a Three Day, Two Day or One Day Event (staggered so that all participants finish on the same day).
The next Annapurna 100 will take place on Saturday 28th March 2009
Gimre Completing the first Annapurna 100
