Ellie Pell is the first woman to win the 50k Ultra outright, blasting past runner-up Richard Ellsworth in the four-hour endurance race. Unfortunately for Richard, race organizers never anticipated a woman might win, so while there is a trophy for the fastest woman in the race, no corresponding prize exists for men.
“It was great, but also an awkward situation,” Hardy said. “Obviously there’s a lot of great women runners, but you don’t see them winning ultras outright a lot. When it happens, they get two awards.”
“I ended up taking both awards—the overall winner and the first place female,” Pell said. “I felt bad that the first place man didn’t have one, so I tried to convince them to blot out the ‘fe’ on ‘female,’ but they said to just keep both trophies. It was pretty funny.”
Race organizers subsequently made a "fastest man" trophy for Mr. Ellsworth. For future races, they instead plan to issue trophies to the top six runners irrespective of gender.
