Ultra marathon runner breezes through Bay Trail

The 50km Bay Trail Run proved little more than a regular training hit out for Nelson athlete Aditya Kesarcodi-Watson last month. Just a week earlier, he had lined up in a 100km event in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

So he wasn’t planning to put too much pressure on himself on the Cable Bay Adventure Park run. One of the highlights across the Tasman was his two children, Anokha, five, and 10-year-old Kalyani, crossing the finish line with him.

Despite a sore ankle, the defending champion ran away from the 45 strong field, winning in five hours, 25 minutes and 45 seconds. That was almost 20 minutes ahead of the next finisher.

“I run that distance in training once a week. I just love hill running,” says the 48-year-old, who was born in Melbourne to Indian and Australian parents.

Aditya moved to Nelson more than 20 years ago and worked as a microbiologist at the Cawthron Institute.

“But now I am officially retired. I admire people who get up and run in the dark. I can start at 10am and go for four or five hours,” declares the ultra-marathon runner, who lives just five minutes from Fringed Hill in central Nelson.

He wouldn’t move back to Melbourne as it is “too big” and you have to drive up to an hour and a half to find the right hills and trails to train on. Aditya, which translates to sun god, began competing in 100km races in 2023 and is a tough judge when it comes to assessing his five long distance performances so far. Being forced to pull out of his second event in the Snowy Mountains, only made him more determined.

“I was in fifth place, but my body fell apart at the 70km mark and I eventually withdrew with 10km to go. Knowing I could have been top three, drove me to keep competing in future ultra-trail races. I like to push myself,” says Aditya.

His best result so far was taking out the Grampians Peaks Trail event in Victoria last year.

“There were four stages over four days in a row, 160km in total, and I won all four and the overall  GPT 100 event.” The Bay Trail Run was his third 100km event already this year and his next big goal is the 60km Kepler Challenge in Southland in December.

“I have booked the flights and now I have to wait to see if I can get a race start. I do take pride that I can still compete with people young enough to be my children,” he enthuses.

As for his kids, Aditya is taking them hiking at the Nelson Lakes this weekend.
Suggest he could probably run home from there; he quips, but then they would have to hitchhike.

Meanwhile the Bay Trail Run, which also offered 34km, 25km and 9km courses, attracted 328 entrants.

Roisin McQuillan travelled from Matamata to win the women’s 50km event in just under seven hours.

The other winners were: Patrick Dravitzki and Charlotte Hand in the 34kms, Dougal Shepherd and Carmel Tolhurst in the 25kms and Tegan Goodman and Alexa Bryant in the 9kms.

The organisers donate all the profits to the QE11 National Trust.