The first 20kms were on pace or a bit faster than expected, but I was happy to go with its as I was concerned about the heat later in the day. I suspected that I was sitting in second position before the first aid station as we had seen the first female runner Michelle Brown and didn’t anticipate anyone to be in front of her. At this stage, I started to feel the pressure of placing and was thinking a lot about if I could maintain the position and how much it would mean to my husband to be able to say I placed at a race. I knew he would be so proud to be able to say Icompetedin a race and didn’t only get a participation medal.
By the time we hit the next aid station at around the 30km mark it was starting to get quite hot and the pace had dropped down quite a lot. It began to dawn on me how much further this was than a marathon questioning my sanity and my motivations for spending the next seven hours or so trying to get a hunk of metal and a pat on the back. But I had a pep talk (or two) from Alexis, who is a well-seasoned ultra-runner, and kept going.
35km in on the 5km ‘out and back’ section of the course, which was wide fire trail with little tree cover, we really began to feel the effects of the unseasonably warm day. The out and back gave a good opportunity to see where everyone else was on the field and we saw the lead female runner Michelle, who was probably 6km in front. I was in no way chasing her, I was more interested in the third place runner who was about 5km behind.
By 50km both Alexis and I were struggling and calling ‘hill’ for any small rise so we can walk. It was really hot by this stage and my hips were not happy about the punishment. I started to get quite nauseous. Alexis was on and off cramping, and I was more than happy to take walk breaks when they came.
We finally make it to the Oakley Dam turn off which was a short out and back. This is an unsealed gazetted road, quite undulating with lots of downhill which I knew very soon would be uphills, so I was not happy. I knew that mum must have been waiting for quite some time as we are about 45 minutes over our ETA. Here mum decided to tell me she has realised I was in second place. I could tell she was so excited, but I’d just had it now and my body didn’t want to carry on anymore.
When I ask how far to the next aid station, they laughed at me and said it’s the finish line. That certainly perked me up, but as we were getting ready to leave, our third placer arrived into the aid station so the lead I had was shrinking. As I left, another female runner was coming in. Now I really had to hoof it as I think I had 3rd and 4th place right on my heels.
The last 17km was a very familiar section of the race as it is a part of the 6 Inch Trail Marathon also, which was almost a curse because I knew exactly how far I had to go. I started to wish that the runners behind would just overtake me so I could walk the remainder, but still they did not appear. Knowing I was getting close to the finish but trying not to get my hopes up was a delicate task. I thought I would get emotional as I usually do when I push myself to a new limit, but I was quite calm. This might have been me maturing as an ultra runner, or maybe I was too dehydrated, and there were no tears to be had.
