Bing! “Your friend, Aida has posted something on Facebook… Anyone keen to give this UTA50 Ultramarathon
a go?” Out for dinner with my husband, Laurie, when the message came
through, I asked him what he thought and, before we knew it, without ever
having done a marathon (let alone an ultramarathon), we had signed up.
7 months of training followed, including participating in my
first marathon (the O’Keefe rail trail marathon) and week after week of long
Sunday morning trail runs.
Unfortunately, Laurie had suffered a calf injured in the 2
months leading up to the race and we had experienced a night of devastation
earlier in the week when his physio told him he wouldn’t be able to compete. We
had trained together and I had spent 7 months visualising myself completing the
challenge alongside him. It was shattering for both of us to learn that our
dream of finishing it together would not be happening. In the last few days
leading up to the race I tried visualising doing the race by myself but found
it hard to imagine what it would be like. Laurie half-heartedly packed his
running gear ‘just in case,’ and, with less excitement than I had originally
imagined, we set off on our flight to Sydney.
I was nervous upon arrival at Katoomba in the Blue
Mountains. Attending the expo the night before the race, although dampened by
miserable weather, started making me really excited and made me feel a bit less
of a long distance fraud. Thousands of people filled the race check in and
briefing shed, creating a friendly atmosphere of nervous anticipation and a
real sense that all of us were part of a big community (granted it was a
community of adventure seeking crazy people who had lost their marbles while
out on a run, but it was a warm and welcoming community none the less).
During the race briefing it was explained that due to the
terrible forecast for a huge dumping of rain overnight, the course had to be
completely rerouted and the 50km runners would now we doing an adaptation of
the first 50km of the 100km course instead of the original 2nd half
of the 100km course. This caused a little anxiety for some runners, as they had
carefully studied and trained on the original course. Due to my plan of
‘winging it’ on the original course, this change did not faze me. (I have
always loved the surprise of finding out where you are going as you get there,
which is why I hate ‘out and back’ runs and why I love orienteering and
rogaining.) The other change to the race was the fact that we would now be
starting at 10:06am instead of 7:54am. Yay! A sleep in and a late breakfast!
On the morning of the race I woke up and asked Laurie how he
was feeling. He said he’d been thinking about it ALL night and had decided that
he was just going to give the race a go. He would try his best to get to the
first checkpoint (8km in) and reassess from there. The last thing he wanted was
to have to pull out in the middle of nowhere and then have to be rescued! I was
thrilled!
We enjoyed a late breakfast and made it to the start line
with plenty of time to spare. The feeling at the start was electric! We were
all so impatient to get out there and hurt like mad! (Ok, that wasn’t exactly
what I was thinking while I was at the start, but I think that is essentially
what we were all looking forward to). We had a countdown and then we were off-
straight up a hill! I was conscious of the fact that Laurie’s calf was very
tender and we had 50km still to run so we took it easy on this first bitumen
section up and down the hill, past the start again and down to the top of the
stairs. (Note to self for next time: run this part hard so you don’t get caught
way down the back of the bottleneck at the stairs). Once we hit the stairs it
was time to follow the long que and walk down the stairs, enjoying the amazing
rainforest waterfalls and scenery. At the bottom of the stairs we got a bit
more jogging in and then another long queue that saw us travelling at a pace of
32mins per kilometre! Although this section was very slow, it gave us a chance
to introduce ourselves to the runners around us and exchange running tips and
training stories. This is one of the things I really love about trail running;
the people are so friendly! We climbed the Fuber stairs (it was hard work, made
harder by the fact we were caught behind some slower people and there were very
few opportunities to pass) and were brought back to the reality of what we were
doing when the call of “emergency assistance required for runner number …… they
need to be evacuated- pass it up the line” came from the bottom of the Fuber
steps. Eeeek! I thought, that could have been Laurie- we really need to take
this thing carefully.
We made it to the first checkpoint (8kms) and enjoyed some
fruit, a toilet stop and a mouthful of chips (my marathon experience had taught
me to increase my salt intake) and we were off again. Laurie committed to keep
going and we knew we had 20kms until the next checkpoint. This section saw us
running along a long stretch of fireroad, with amazing views of the mountains
and valleys below. I did some reflecting at this point and realised just how
sore my hamstrings were after all the climbing in the first 8kms. It was at the
17km mark that the negative thoughts started to creep in to my mind…how the
heck was I going to carry on for another 30+kms when my hammys were this
buggered!? I kept chugging along, trying to keep up to Laurie (who hikes hills
like they are flats) and tried to use the scenery to get me through.
At 19kms, we reached what we thought was a little bit of
congestion, but soon learnt was actual a one hour bit of congestion- all caused
by a bottleneck at the famous Taros Ladders. I had seen this in the promo for
the 100km event and was excited to get to experience them. Laurie was really
worried about cooling down and how this might impact his calf and some people
behind us were quite annoyed about the wait. I didn’t really mind as it gave us
an opportunity to chat with others again and, as I realised afterwards, the
rest did wonders for my hammys and my mindset! The only thing I did start worrying
about at this point was just how long it was going to take to finish this darn
thing. I knew sunset was at around 5:30pm and, at the rate we would be going, I
predicted a finish of around 8pm.
It took us over 6 hours to make it to checkpoint 2 (30km). 6
hours! I was sick of hills by this point and was starting to crave some decent
food. I would have paid enormous money for a hot pie, had someone been randomly
selling them at this stop (note to self: future business opportunity). Even
though I usually eat gluten free (as it helps with my endometriosis pain), we
indulged in a fruit bun each, layered thick with butter- YUMMO! Thank goodness
for solid, savoury food at the checkpoint. We filled up our water and headed
off again, keen to get the last 20kms done in a much faster time than we did
the first 20kms! As we left this checkpoint we were handed a high vis vest and
were told we would need to put this on later in the race once it started
getting dark (this was a necessary safety precaution with the changes to the
time and route of the race).
The scenery was beautiful when we left the 2nd
checkpoint, we slowly jogged past a secluded farm house deep in a dark green
valley and, just as I was dreaming of returning here for a quiet holiday
getaway, we rounded the corner and saw a horrible steep, winding, steep,
horrible HILL. It just went on and on and on. (Question to self: Why didn’t I
do waaaaayyyy more hill hiking training before this event!?) Laurie hiked up
this like a mountain goat who was born on the side of a hill whilst I was more
‘slug like’ in my ascent. We eventually reunited past the top (once I finally
hauled myself to the top of the hill I had to run to catch up with him). With
less than 20kms to go, it was time to pull out my secret weapon: my can of
energy delivering spinach! (Ok, it wasn’t Popeye’s spinach- it was a
caffeinated Torq gel!) The goodness of caffeine poured straight in to my legs
and my mind and I felt fresh again! Just as had happened in my marathon, I felt
much better in the second half of the event than I did the first. The sun was
setting on us as we climbed the horrible hilly hill after checkpoint 2 and by
the time we were heading down the other side it was time to dig our head
torches out of our packs. While we were poking around in our packs, we thought
it would be a good time to have a few more salt tablets to keep the salt levels
up (this was a lesson I learned in my marathon), it was at this stage that we
realised that Laurie had accidentally dropped our salt tablet bag someone back
along the course. Bugger!
We kept chugging along at this stage with more jogging than
we had done earlier as I was feeling much better and there was a gentle
downhill slope towards checkpoint 3. The fact we were running in the last bit
of daylight added a bit of excitement to the run and gave my mind something
else to focus on as neither of us could afford to trip over so we had to give
100% concentration to the trail in front of our feet. The noise of what sounded
like an indian tribal call coming from the checkpoint volunteers echoed out
across the valley and guided us in to the third checkpoint (we thought this
noise was only 300-400meters in front of us but we learnt it had carried much
further than that and the checkpoint at least 1.5kms away).
At CP3 I couldn’t resist the temptation of having a quick
cup of tea and another delicious fruit bun before we were off again, this total
in total darkness (bar our headlamps). We joined a line of people running along
the single track out of here, with our eyes carefully studying the ground in
front of us. We eventually made it out on the open fire trail again and engaged
in more sustained running after we downed a couple of the salt sachets Laurie
found at the checkpoint. It was an incredible sight, seeing nothing but the
brightened spot on the ground in front of us and the reflective tape on the
vests of the many runners in front of us. We really could have been running
anywhere in the world at this point!
I was getting nervous about reaching the 6 Foot Track and
Nellie’s Glen at this stage. I had very little idea of what or where they
actually where and, since both of our watches had died earlier in the race and
there were no distance markers on the 50km course (due to the course change) we
had no idea how far we have travelled, how far we had to go or what the time of
day was. (This also made nutrition very difficult for the rest of the run!) I
had overheard some people saying Nellie’s Glen was a harder way to end the race
than the original course’s 1000 steps so I was a bit nervous about what it
would involve. We soon learnt that Nellie’s Glen was a series of mostly natural
made steps of all different sizes that just went up and up and up! We had no
idea what our surrounds looked like at this point, as the night around us was
pitch black, but we could hear a stream of water running close by and we
thought it sounded like it would be a nice place to visit during the day (bar
the steps).Having said this, I absolutely LOVED the night running! I had
another caffeine gel at this point and then leant forward, put my hands on my quads
and lifted each leg up in turn to make it to the top of the never-ending
incline (all the meanwhile thinking of the things I would like to say to Nellie
if I ever met her). We passed a number of people on this stretch of the run and
we promised them we would ‘kooeee’ if we reached the top of the stairs, just to
let them all know there actually was a top. There was hardly a sweeter sight
than that of the volunteer at the top of this part telling us we had made it to
the top!
Motivated by the thought of the finish line getting closer
and closer, we made it out on to the bitumen and started heading towards the
Aquatic Center checkpoint. As I realised that we would actually get this thing
finished (and that Laurie was going to make it too) my brain started
considering the next race we should enter. I asked Laurie for his thoughts and
it is safe to say he was not interested in discussing the next run when he hadn’t
finished this one! We decided to distract ourselves from the last few kilometres
of pain by focusing on ‘picking off’ the runners ahead of us. We set our sights
on passing 10 runners initially and then, after we headed in and out of CP4, we
increased this to 20. At some stage between the 48km mark and the finish Laurie
told me he had spent the last 5 minutes trying to work out where in the world
we actually were (he thought we were in Tasmania for a bit), I think this shows
how much effort he had put in to make it this far! We were told by a volunteer
that there was only 1.9kms to go…so much for that! It felt like about 5 kms (of
which half was through Tasmania according to Laurie).
We FINALLY rounded the bend to the finish area and decided
to hold hands as we ran up the finish line. It was so exhilarating to run up
the finishing chute with everyone shouting and clapping and cheering us on-
even though it had taken us 10 hours and 6 minutes to complete the run. (Once
again, this is why I love the trail running community).
Pure relief and joy as we crossed the finish line- we made
it and we did it together!
Favourite parts: Chatting to all the other runners, running
at night, the stunning views in the day, the ladders, doing the run with
Laurie, the expo and forum on the Friday night, being able to refer to myself as an ultramarathon runner!
Least favourite parts: having too many hills, having sore
glutes and hammies after all the stairs, not knowing how far we had run after
our watches died.
Lessons learned in this run include the fact that I need to:
- Do a lot more hill training, including hiking up steep hills, doing star training before a long run and running down hills.
- Pack more savoury and filling food items in my pack.
- Buy a brighter head torch for night running.
- Buy a watch with a battery that will last for a whole ultramarathon.
- Taping my feet before the run actually helps!
- Maybe trial having a caffeine gel earlier in the run.
- Sign up for another ultramarathon!
