President's Report: Simone Hayes for February 2024

February seems to have come and gone in a flash! Your Committee have once again been extremely busy this month working on many aspects of the association, as we work towards growth and new opportunities within our sport in Australia.

With the race calendar in full swing, we along with the race directors and runners alike, have a lot to look forward to in 2024.

This month we see the return of a 100km road race held by the amazing Sri Chinmoy Marathon team. This race is also host to the National 100km Championships and we are very appreciative of them getting this off the ground and look forward to an exciting night of racing.

We had some fabulous events this month and if you missed the news and great pics go back and have a read of this week’s news report.

News from the Committee desk covers quite a few areas with our focus right now being on member growth which so far has been unprecedented – so we thank you all for supporting AURA!

We have also been busy working closely with the Australian state trail associations, with an aim to become more connected so as to further recognise this discipline within AURA. Our aim is to become a unified national voice, enhancing our focus on grass roots events - ultimately bolstering trail and ultra running, together.

Trail running is not new to AURA – in fact if you look at our calendar, around 80% of our events are now trail, as trail and ultra already significantly overlap. Bringing trail and ultra together in a more formal agreement means GROWTH for AURA and will unify these closely linked sporting disciplines and allow us to have greater, more meaningful, stakeholder engagement as a larger group. Members and athletes will reap the benefits that come from a united and growing organisation.

So – while it is a work in progress – watch this space!

We hope you are enjoying the new website! We have also been continuously updating it as we bring in more content from our coaches and running gurus, and also adding to our Member Benefits. Our State Reps are actively making good use of their contacts in each state to bring our members more value. If you have any recommendations or contacts, or products and services you would like to see offered here, please don’t hesitate to contact your state reps.

Preparations for the hosting of the upcoming 24 Hour Asian Oceania Championships are moving along well and I’m sure our athletes who are competing in the championships and also in the open event are clocking up a stack of kilometres!

Next month is the Australian Short Course Trail Championships being hosted by Noosa Ultra Trail 50km. There are still some entries left, so if you haven’t been up north to the beautiful Noosa hinterland, I really recommend this event after racing there the past two years.

That’s just a hint of what goes on behind the scenes at AURA, I’m under instruction to keep these reports short so I’ll save something for next month! But rest assured that you have a team of volunteers that are working tirelessly to improve and grow the sport we all love.

Happy running!

Simone Hayes - President