Organizers unprepared as woman wins ultra marathon outright

Ellie Pell is the first woman to win the 50k Ultra outright, blasting past runner-up Richard Ellsworth in the four-hour endurance race. Pell took home both the 1st place trophy and the "fastest lady" trophy; unfortunately for Richard, race organizers never anticipated a woman might win, so no corresponding prize exists for gents.

"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.

Time are a changing. They didn't have an award for the first place male. Guess they weren't expecting a female overall winner #bravelikegabe @fast_women pic.twitter.com/EUGJwN8IVC

- Ellie Pell (@gazzellie) August 10, 2019