KIRSTEN Molloy’s effort in claiming her third-straight Queen of the Mountain title is quite incredible.
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The marathon runner prepared for the challenge up North Brother Mountain on Sunday with a lazy 35-kilometre run the day before.
“I had my long run on Saturday so I wasn’t on the freshest legs on Sunday,” Molloy said.
“And then I did 15 kays before I got to the mountain so I’ve probably had a 60-kay weekend which isn’t abnormal for me.”
If that isn’t surprising enough, Molloy said she had just come off five weekends of racing in a row and just last week had completed two marathons.
“Most people do one marathon a year or one marathon every two years and I’ve got eight planned for this year,” she said.
“I’m probably overdoing things, but I’m in a big training phase at the moment so ideally I would have liked to have had a rest, but I love King of the Mountain because I see it as our local event.
Most people do one marathon a year or one marathon every two years and I’ve got eight planned for this year.
- Queen of the Mountain winner Kirsten Molloy
“I travel overseas and interstate a lot to race, so when you’ve got one at your back door you want to have a crack at it.”
After regularly competing at full and half-marathon distance, Molloy said she was comfortable with the five-kilometre effort up the mountain.
“Marathons are 42 kays so five kays for me is something I do regularly because it’s such a short distance,” she said.
“But the longer it went the stronger I felt and the more time I put in to the next girl and pulled away from some of the boys as well so it’s a nice change to be honest.”
Molloy said she was pleased to see “so many kids” in her travels up the mountain.
“Each year there are so many more kids and I love seeing the kids because they’re the future of our community and the future of our sport,” she said.
Overall winner Harry Jones beat Molloy by two minutes and she was hopeful of closing that gap again next year.
The longer it went the stronger I felt and the more time I put in to the next girl.
- Kirsten Molloy
“Two minutes isn’t far at all and hopefully next year I can be a bit closer to Harry,” she said.
In the meantime, Molloy will aim to complete her “marathon major” collection.
The marathon majors are events in New York, Boston, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo and London.
“My big thing over the next two years is I want to collect every marathon major there is so I’ve got four more to collect in the next two years,” she said.
“There’s a lot of running overseas now and I’ve got another two more marathons this year and I want to pick up the collection so that’s my big focus.
“When you get all six of them you get a special lifetime membership so that’s on my to-do list.
“By the end of the year I will have ticked a couple because I’ve been fortunate to do New York and Boston this year.”