Whitehaven coal
14 November 2024
Oliva’s running to make a difference!
Whitehaven Environmental Advisor Olivia Hulbert is an inspiration when it comes to her passion for important causes, her love of running, and her ability to combine the two into fundraising efforts.
One of the causes Olivia supports is mental health, and she has done plenty of fundraising over the years. This year is no different, as she aims to run 400km for Men’s Health in the Movember challenge.
In addition to her fundraising endeavours, Olivia also runs recreationally and recently returned from the Ultra Trail Mont-Blanc World Series final. As part of our Movember Move for Mental Health inspiration, we caught up with her for a chat:
Tell us about the European event you’ve recently competed in.
I competed at the Ultra Trail Mont-Blanc (UTMB) World Series Final, which is a 100km trail running race, held in August and covers distance across France, Italy, and Switzerland (with over 6,000m elevation gain). It is a difficult race to get in to as you need to enter a global lottery with only 1900 runners selected each year. To enter in the lottery you need to collect ‘virtual running stones’ by competing and finishing 50km, 100km and 100mile running races. The stones collected from these races can then be entered into the UTMB lottery. In 2024 I entered seven running stones from the races I had participated in over the last 24 months and that meant I had seven chances to get selected.
What inspired you to do it?
I have been an avid trail runner since 2021 and competed in my first ultra marathon in 2022. You could say I am slightly obsessed with the sport! I have been able to explore so many beautiful places and travel internationally competing in different ultra marathons including NZ and now France, Italy, and Switzerland!! UTMB is known as the Superbowl of trail running. It is an extremely hard race both physically, and mentally, and hard to get into, but I LOVE a challenge and I was so excited to check out the European alpine trails.
How did you go?
I was fortunate to be able to spend a good few weeks’ training at altitude before the race. This helped immensely and I finished 1st Australian Female and 56th Female in the world in a stacked field of elite runners.
That’s incredible, well done! Other than those amazing results, were there any other highlights and would you do it again?
My highlight was running down the finishing chute at 2am after a gruelling seventeen hours, 100km of running with over 6000m of elevation gained, the feeling you get in that moment is like nothing else and you truly feel invincible. I would 100% do it again! Next time I think I will have to do the “big loop.” Yes, there is a longer, more brutal race you can do! I would like to go back and do the 160km loop around the Mont Blanc massif with a whopping 10,000m+ of elevation.
Trail running also has a large following in the Gunnedah area with several locals who race around Australia and work across the mining industry. Participating in the race I felt like I was representing Regional NSW and the local trail community.
What’s next?
My next race is in a few weeks (29th November) – the 100 mile Ultra Trail Kosciuszko event where I will be running from Lake Jindabyne up to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko then continuing to run around the Australian alps for one hundred miles.
And, of course, I will be running 400km through November to raise funds for Men’s Health and the Movember Challenge. It’s great to see so many people across the business setting their own goals and raising much-needed funds for an important cause.
Whitehaven is once again supporting Movember in 2024. You can donate to the Whitehaven Challenge here
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