Jeanette Mertz is a Danish national but she has spent the past 10 years as expatriate in Singapore and now Dubai, where she works as a full-time advisor helping large companies to digitally transform.
She has always loved running whether it was cross country and track in high school or ½ and full marathon and some occasional shorter ultras as an adult.
However, it was only in 2017 after a heated debate on wasted talent with an Elite Tri-coach at Dubai70.3 that she decided to up the game and see what structured ultra-training could do.
She put a race plan of 6 ultras in 6 months in H2 2017 ranging from 45K to 200 miles, where she deliberately chose very different ultras to test her capabilities at various types and distances to find her sweet spot.
Races included shorter technical trails in Oman and UAE where she placed 1st and 2nd female; Less technical 50K trail where she placed 5tt female; longer road ultras in Singapore of 100k and 200 miles where she placed 1st and 3rd female respectively as well as a shorter multi-stage at Half Marathon Des Sables where she placed 11th female.
Her plans for 2018 includes 250K multi-stage Marathon Des Sables in Sahara, Vietnam Mountain 100K, Danish National Championship long trail and Queen of the Jungle in Thailand.