Feature: Trail Tails

Mandatory gear is one of those topics that can light up a race briefing.

Over my time in WA I’ve heard plenty of stories: runners arguing with volunteers about what they “really” need to carry, pushing back on checks, even dumping gear on course to save a few hundred grams. It can feel over‑the‑top, until the night it isn’t.

When I’m training, I always carry at a minimum what I need to carry for my next event, or at the very least: water, basic first aid, and if I’ll be out anywhere near dark, my headlamps and spare batteries. It’s not because I’m a gear nerd. It’s because I want the habits and the muscle memory to be boringly automatic when it counts.

A few days back I was out on my local trail, about 8 km in. There were still a few people around because a local trail group had just finished up their regular session, but by then it was almost completely dark. Up ahead, I saw a pair of feet on the side of the trail and someone lying on the ground. I called out the usual “You all good?” and, for the first time in asking that question, the answer was no.

He’d been separated from his group on a side trail and had come back to the main track after being bitten by a snake. Another runner was with him, trying to help with a bandage, but it was hard to see and the bandage wasn’t one of the purpose made snake ones with pressure indicators. Turns out he had used his sometime earlier that night helping out a fellow runner who had fallen over. I dug out my headlamp, took my vest off and got my snake bandage from my pack and asked him to show me the puncture site.

Applying a snake bandage is something I’d always been quietly paranoid about. Like a lot of ultra runners, I spend a fair bit of time alone in the bush, and I’d often wondered how I’d manage if I ever had to bandage my own leg. So I’d gone out of my way to learn the pressure‑immobilisation technique properly. Now, instead of being a theoretical exercise, I was wrapping from the bite site down to the ankle and then upwards, keeping his leg still, marking the puncture and talking to him to keep him conscious while we stayed on the phone with triple zero.

We were only about 200 metres from a road, on trails I know well, but in the dark it was surprisingly hard to describe the exact location. The other runner headed out to meet the ambulance and guide them in. The ambo’s took over when they arrived and, to my relief, said the bandage looked good. The runner was awake, talking, understandably rattled but in much better shape than if we’d been fumbling in the dark with no light and the wrong gear.

Once he was safely in their hands, I did what trail runners do: I checked my watch, realised I’d burned a good chunk of time, and completed my run. Only then did I notice I’d forgotten to pause my run, and his. The ambo gave me a friendly clip over the ear for padding his stats.

There are a few simple lessons in there for me: carry the gear, even in training; practise with it; ask “Where’s the snake now?” before you rush in so you don’t create a second casualty; and maybe buy that second snake bandage and hope it never comes out of the packet. None of this is glamorous. It doesn’t shave minutes off your PB. It’s just the unexciting side of looking after each other in places where help is often further away than we’d like.

So the next time an RD or volunteer is checking your kit, or you’re tempted to “save weight” by leaving something out or tossing it mid‑race, I’d invite you to think about nights like this.

Mandatory gear isn’t about winning an argument or ticking a box. It’s about making sure that when someone finally answers “No, I’m not okay”, the person who happens to be passing, which could just as easily be you, has more to offer than an awkward shrug and a phone with low battery.