“The scenery is amazing, but this is bloody hard” was the quote of the day from Peter Mellon, who strolled across the line in (4hrs 35mins).

The runners packed up their hammocks and prepared their equipment in the cool morning air. Low lying cloud saturated the start line as Race Director Kris King opened up the proceding, giving our intrepid runners the lay of the land and welcoming Juan Carlos, a local government representative to start the race!

The runners stomped off down a newly laid road, the only one in and out of Manu national park, before dipping off into the forest. This would be their first taste of Jungle proper, but not their last.

They were met with a near vertical descent that got their quads burning and required careful footing. Slippery mud, treacherous tree roots and knotted ropes marked their traverse down into the valley, before their first river crossing and the medical team at CR1 greeted them. Here they were hydrated and checked over before the day’s biggest feature, the Jungle wall.

The real test started with them clambering up steep slopes covered in loose dirt, hauling themselves up hand over hand on ropes laid by our local Peruvian team, before taking on a lung busting ascent to CP2.

The runners then enjoyed the epic splendour as they followed the road down to their evening camp, passing massive waterfalls and small frontier villages before arriving at the camp.

The first runners in the door had plenty of time to recover, pitching their hammocks and dipping under their tarps to get out of the mid day sun.

The official winners of the Men and Women’s races are as follows:

Stéphane Pagani crossed the line in a blistering 3hrs 18mins, taking the road sections in his stride and really putting distance between himself and the chasing pack. Lynsie Miller didn’t realise she was first female as she crossed the finish line in just 4hrs 23mins. Lynsie put on an excellent show in the Jungle sections and made excellent time at all of the checkpoints. 

Following on from Stéphane was Ben Harrison and Marshall Maine in 3hrs 28mins and 3hrs 31mins, crossing the line within a few minutes of one another. The pair had leapfrogged each other the whole race, really pushing the pace as they hunted Stéphane.

Behind Lynsie came Kate Smyth and Ioana Barbu in 4 hours 35mins  and 5hrs 20mins respectively, both Women put in a strong showing out on the course, taking the jungle and road sections in their stride.

Stage two of the race starts at 7am local time, where our runners will descend further down into the valley and take on ‘Amazonia’.

View the full race results down below, and if you want to learn more about the Jungle Ultra make sure to download the racepack by clicking here.