Salt Pans Ultra Trail Marathon

Dale briefing runners before the Salt Pans Ultra. In this interview series, Ahotu will be speaking with the people behind some of the most unique races across the globe. We’ll be discussing the history of the event, challenges and how to overcome them, attracting sponsors, reaching new runners and more! Thanks for joining us, Dale. The Salt Pans Ultra is a relatively new race in a truly unique landscape. Could you introduce the race and yourself? Thanks for having me. My name is Dale ter Haar and I am one of two owners of the company that hosts the Salt Pans Ultra or the SPU as we call it. My business partner, Stefan Ortwein, and I also race direct the run. The SPU is a one day ultra trail race in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans of Central Botswana, in Southern Africa. I believe we are one of only 2 or 3 ultra runs held on salt flats and certainly the only one in Africa. The SPU started in 2019 as a 3 day, multi stage ultra race and then in 2020 CV-19 hit and we took a little global pandemic time out. Botswana also had a hard lock down where you couldn’t move without permits, which didn’t help. In 2022, as you know, the World slowly opened up and thankfully we were able to host the race again. This time as a single stage 100/50kms event. The multi day event format proved logistically very demanding due to the unique challenges the pans impose. What led to the creation of the event, where did the idea come from? My brother, myself and 3 other friends were looking for something to do about 10 years ago. My family has always spent time at the Pans and so we agreed running the full 105kms South – North length of Sua Pans would be a fitting challenge. We added raising money for charity to the mix to make sure we followed through with the idea. During that run, it occurred to me that this would be an awesome place to host an ultra. I was already organising sports events as fund raisers for a charity I am involved with so it was not too much of a leap! Botswana is very road running focused and at the time didn’t have any ultra events, road or trail. We are still the only ultra of any sort in the country. I am a big fan of putting on events that are perhaps a bit outside of the box in the local environment. The SPU was perfect for this in the Botswana context. The Pans are also an awesome venue so lent themselves perfectly to the idea. The 2023 Edition just took place, how did this year go for you as an organiser and for your participants? The 2023 race went really well. We pride ourselves on our organisation and timeliness and we managed to deliver on both fronts. Runner feedback was great, we earned a Gold Award on Racecheck, with an average score of 4.84/5 based on 49 reviews. We are chuffed with that as it’s a ton of work setting it all up, given the location and it’s great to see our efforts are appreciated by our participants! What are the most challenging aspects of organising the race given the unique terrain it takes place on? Everything! The Makgadikgadi Pans are the bed of an ancient, huge inland sea that dried up thousands of years ago as the plates of the Rift Valley shifted. Interestingly, the Okavango Delta is all that remains of this huge water mass. We start the race on the Southern edge of this flat expanse. Before we arrive to set up the race village there is nothing there. We are 150 kilometres from the nearest big village and 8 hours drive from the capital city Gaborone, where we transport most things from. So from nothing emerges a fully equipped race village that accommodates, feeds, waters, cleans and sustains 150 – 200 people for 3 days. The next challenge are the race check points. Half of these can only be reached by quad bikes because 4×4s would get stuck in the mud that sits 6 inches under the top crust layer of the Pans. Setting up check points for 75 runners with just what a quad bike can carry is no easy feat. Think 200 litres of water, nutrition, ice, shade, cots, chairs etc. Our window to host the race is also limited. The pans can hold surface water for all but 3-4 months of the year. So we host the race as far from the end of the previous rainy season and as close to the next rainy season as we can to try and ensure our route is dry. What is your favourite part of your job? What is the highlight of the race for you as an organiser? That’s an easy one! The highlight is definitely being able to show off Botswana and the Pans. There are many great ultra races out there and lots in unique locations but only low single digits on salt flats. And I don’t think any that take you into the middle of the pans. I love to hear runners cross the finish line and gush about how moving the whole experience was. Well, after they have had a chance to catch their breath. That feeling of complete isolation is so hard to find in our busy worlds. The Pans are awe inspiring in so many ways. The scale of them, the beauty of the sunrises and sunsets, the sheer amount of nothingness, the complete quiet, the expansive African night sky, the isolation, the smiles of the volunteers, the ancient, thousand year old baobab trees that hold a millennia of stories and tales….Sorry – I could go and on. A runner cuts a lonely figure in the unique landscape of the Salt Pans Ultra. How many runners did you have and which countries were represented? We sold out all 100 places but only had 84 runners compete on the day due to natural pre-race attrition / dropout. 63 ran in the 50k and 21 in the 100k race. We had 9 DNFs in the 50k whilst only 6 runners finished the 100k, with one of those missing the cut-off. So it’s safe to say the 100k is a beast and certainly pushes participants to their limites. It has been described as “a uniquely hard event that is a gorilla in chimps clothing”! We do warn runners with our tagline “where flat isn’t easy” and “the hardest flat race in the world”… but it still manages to catch people off-guard. Are you noticing a shift in where your runners are coming from? Are there any particular hotspots? What was nice to see this year was how many more people travelled from overseas. We had people from 18 countries. They came from as far afield as Canada, across Europe and of course many from Southern Africa. For many who travelled from overseas it was their first experience of Africa, so we are pleased that they entrusted us to deliver a race to remember. I think the European attendance will grow over time as it’s a pretty easy trip to Botswana from many European countries. We are super focused on effective communications and giving the runners assurances that the trip will be easy, safe and obviously worth the effort. We setup Zoom calls and a Whatsapp group for participants, which is well received. This allows us to create a community that supports our runners, the WhatsApp group is still active even weeks after the race! How do you promote the event / what channels are you and your team utilising to reach new runners? We are in all the usual spots. We have our website and we use RaceCheck there to give people some idea of the positive reviews we have been getting. Then we are also on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, and of course we are live on World’s Marathons & Ahotu, which is getting us international interest and from across the globe. We looked at TikTok but haven’t yet made the jump! We were also at the National Running Show in Birmingham this January looking to speak to UK based runners. The race has a number of sponsors and partners, how have you gone about building these relationships? Are there any partners you would like to shout out in particular? We have some great sponsoring partners. Our big focus is on customising each relationship to what works best for that particular partner. They are not all after the same things. We pride ourselves on not just being an event that they hear from in and around our race. So we create these regular touch points throughout the year that ensures they get more consistent interaction with us, our runners and their clients. Our main sponsors are Blue Crystal Sugar who sponsor the Salt Pans Ultra, our Backyard Ultra and our monthly Mokolodi Nature Reserve trail runs. We use their sugar in our ice tea, lemonade, power bars and various other snacks that we give to our runners at our events. They are focused on promoting the responsible consumption of sugar and we think an ultra race is a good fit because its one of the few times you can consume almost anything guilt free. Desert and Delta Safaris are also big sponsors and provide us with our winner prizes of free safaris. Plus they provide a lot of the logistical infrastructure we use like gazebos, stretch tents etc. What can future participants expect from the course / race itself? We call the SPU the hardest flat race in the World and we really believe it might be. Runners look at the distances and think ‘Bleh – its a 50 or 100kms with no elevation, how hard can it be?”!. Well, pretty hard if the finishing times are anything to go by. There are no route markers, no trails, trees, hills or anything else to distract you for most of the race. Just miles and miles of very bright sand, a hot sun that beats down on you; getting mercilessly hotter as the hours pass and check points that you can see from miles away but never seem to draw closer. It’s as much a mental challenge as it is physical. Our 100kms winner last year did the 89kms Comrades Marathon in South Africa in 8h30m and he finished the 100kms in 13h17m! That additional 11kms took him just short of an extra 5 hours. We also try and make the event more than a race. We add a few Southern African traditions like a braai (BBQ), sundowners, a camp fire etc. What would you recommend international runners to do whilst visiting Botswana either side of the race? Go on safari! Botswana is the World’s premier safari destination and we have secured some great safari packages with Desert and Delta Safaris in the North of Botswana and Tuli Wilderness in Eastern Botswana. They are such great value that its almost a crime not to spend a few days seeing our wildlife. The Tuli Wilderness safari, for example, is $100 per person per day which includes two game drives and 4 meals. It’s the best safari deal I can think of. Every year runners from across the globe tackle this bucket-list race. What are your plans for the race in the future? We don’t ever want to be huge race and 100 runners will probably be where we max out. It’s really special to have a relatively small group of runners on the Pans. It makes the event a close knit community which we would lose with a larger race. That and the logistics of hosting an ultra in the middle of nowhere are very challenging and would be even more so with a bigger field. We are considering a 100 miler down the line but first we are keen to really establish the 50/100kms events on the global calendar. I really believe we are a bucket list event so for us filling our 100 slots quickly every year would be all we can ask for. When is the next edition taking place and where can people go to learn more? The next Salt Pans Ultra is on 28th September 2024, you can follow our journey on our Instagram @saltpansultramarathon Interested in taking part? You can register for the 2024 edition of the Salt Pans Ultra on Ahotu – Salt Pans Ultra Trail Marathon To feature in our interview series you can drop us an email on [email protected] Interested in promoting your race with World’s Marathons or Ahotu? Contact us on [email protected]