Retolado & Fugaban do the Rizal double

The second of two new Candidate Races in the Rizal mountains east of Manila takes place this Saturday. However, the Sierra Madre Trail Ultra covers basically entirely different trails than the Santa Ines Adventure Run a month ago. Rather unique in today’s trail scene is that the event only offers one race distance category: 75 km, ultra distance no less! And it’s a challenging 75k as total elevation gain is well over 4000 hm. The winners of last month’s race are back, too.

Sherlyn Fugaban was a surprisingly strong female champion in one of her very first long distance trail races, and will be aiming to repeat that success this weekend. On the basis of her performance at Sta Ines, Fugaban could be the next Filipino female contender for this year’s Asia Trail Master Championship title, as Ces Wael is reportedly taking a sabbatical from competitive racing to focus on her advanced studies. At Sierra Madre, Fugaban wil need to watch out for the experienced Cheryll Navarro and for the 2018 vice Asia Trail Master Champion Aggy Sabanal, who is making her return to competition now as a young mother.

Elmer Retolado proved at Sta Ines that the covid pandemic did not affect him very much. The 2019 Akyathlon winner will now face the man he beat 3 years ago in the Cordillera race, Larry Apolinario. That should make for an interesting race, with also Richard Akol, Rudy Paghubasan and last-but-not-least, Al Telias, on the start list.

ATM will be on-site and reporting live from Sierra Madre Trail Ultra tomorrow.