Australia Day Ultra 100km, Australind (WA), 20 January 2018
Having come from a horse riding background, I did not run. I let my horse do that, and I just enjoyed the ride.
I started running after I retired from a retail managers position, and thought I best do something to keep me fit. My daughter and I joined a gym where I lost a few pounds, and after watching my sister and brother-in-law on the other side of the world doing their amazing running events, decided I would try the sport of running.
My daughter Bianca and I progressed through to triathlons, and that had been amazing in itself. The run part was always hard for me, I had shitty knees and used to run with stretch bandages around them, which progressed to Rocktape to keep them happy.
In those days 5kms was very hard, but we did progress to 10kms, and it moved on from there. Along with my triathlon friends we progressed to half ironman races, where you had to run 21kms, and although slow we did manage to get there. My first marathon event, I did with six of my dear triathlon friends – it was the Perth marathon, and oh that was hard, but we did it and we stayed together and finished together.
I am fortunate to have done several marathons since, and Bianca and I progressed to a 50kms ultra in Bunbury on my birthday back in April 2014. During that run we befriended two girls who were running sometimes in front of us, and sometimes behind us, and they were using this run as a training race mainly to do the Kep Track Ultra. I volunteered to help with that one, and was in awe of the runners, and knew in my heart that I wanted to do that one day.
In that same year I progressed to doing some trail running with friends, training for the 6 inch Trail Run. I loved it and on the day ran with two other girlfriends, and although I had a fall and chopped up my knee, I finished the 47kms. I then proceeded to move on to Ironman for the next two years, but still the desire was there to do this long run.
Kep Ultra was no more, but thanks to some dedicated and passionate people we have some new races in WA. In 2017 there was a new run, the Feral Pig, a 50 miler along the Bibbulman Track. This time I had no friends to run with, I was on my own.
I am grateful that on the recon run I met with a guy called Peter and we were a similar pace. Feral Pig was a huge challenge, we did finish, I was eternally grateful for Peter staying with me, and we had the company of another lovely girl, Caroline for a large part of the run too.
We finished after nearly 19 hours, and 50 miles (85kms) done.
Peter had mentioned he was doing the Australia Day Ultra (100kms) the following January. I had always done the 50kms on that event, for the past three years anyway.
Two days after Feral Pig, I signed up for the 100kms. I was so close to that distance that I had only dreamed about, it was too good to let it go.
Fast forward to the ADU. Race start was midnight on the Friday night, it was eight laps of 12.5kms approximately. It wasn’t trail, but quite a nice pathway with beautiful views of the estuary and there are aid stations and support.
My friend Allison drove me down there, and was going to be my pacer from 9am, and thank heaven for her. I had had issues with Plantar Fasciitus for weeks beforehand, but had some treatment with shock wave therapy which appeared to be working, but you still don’t know what might happen on the day – it’s a very long way to run 100kms!
It was race day. People milled around with headlamps and high vis vests on, and we got our bibs and transponders on, and then it was race briefing time. Just after midnight, Peter and Sally, who was joining us, and I left the start line. Knowing we had about five hours of running in the dark, both Sally and I were happy to have company.
Volunteers were at the aid stations of which there were three – one at the start, one at about 2.5kms out, and one at the turnaround of 6.25kms. They had Tailwind, water and fruit.
I grabbed both cups, and a piece of banana at each station as I went past. We were running to a time of 2.30 and .45 sec walk, and really doing quite comfortably, it was working well for me. The first three laps passed pretty quickly really.
We were able to take off our headlamps and vests at the turn around into the 4th lap, and it was lovely to see the dawn, and finally be able to see where we were going.
Sally had always said she would finish at the 50kms mark, and Peter was just doing a slightly slower pace in the 4th lap. On the way back in to finish the 4th lap, the 25kms runners were going out. I left Sally, changed my top, grabbed an LCM bar, and started off again on my own. Peter was just in front of me, and for the next lap or so, we leap frogged each other.
