Pictures from several days of course marking the Hardrock 100 Mile Endurance Run in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado.

The photos show sections of Green Mountain/Buffalo Boy Ridge, Handies Peak, Oh! Point to Ouray, the climb to Virginius Pass, Grant-Swamp Pass and Island Lake.

Hardrock is held every year in July, starting from the town of Silverton. The average elevation of the course is 11,000 feet, and runners ascent and descent some 66,000 feet in total. The maximum time allowed to complete the race is 48 hours.

The race is only officially done when a finisher kisses the Hardrock, a rock with the picture of a mountain ram.

Dangling skeletons, boozed-up volunteers and a blow-up sex doll. The Javelina Jundred in Arizona with its 100 mile and 100 kilometre distances is a cross between an ultra and a Halloween party, with runners sporting anything from elaborate dresses to the minimalist mankini look. There was, after all, a “best ass” award to compete for. Seeing all those characters running through the moon-like landscape of the Sonoran Desert transports you into some sort of surreal ultrarunning dreamscape.

Needless to say, the race had a somewhat different atmosphere than The Bear 100 Mile in Utah, which I did five weeks earlier. In Utah, over 60% of the population are Mormon, and the Bear starts on a Friday to keep Sunday free for religious reasons. When I asked for a massage at Javelina, the therapist responded by warmly stumbling into my arms and greeting me like an old friend, after keeping himself energised with vodka throughout the evening. I didn’t care as long as he still had enough coordination to do something about that excruciating pain in my right foot, lower back and hip flexor, and the massage was great. However, I did steer clear of another drunken volunteer who was dancing with the sex doll. It looked a little too sad to be motivating.

Javelina is a good race if you’re in bad physical shape – nothing much can go wrong and it’s easy to drop out at headquarters if you prefer an early night. Initially I hadn’t been keen, thinking I much preferred the more purist style of ultras. But I had the opportunity to get a lift there with Bruce LaBelle, which turned into a great little road trip, and the social side of it sounded fun. I also thought doing the 100k might be a good recovery event after my first 100 miler, given that I could walk the whole distance if I wanted – the cut-off is 29 hours.

After escaping physically unscathed from the Bear, with not even as much as a blister, I’d done my back in while having fun volunteering at the Overlook Endurance Runs. Helping out with course marking, sorting aid station provisions, making soup and volunteering on the day was a great experience, but I hadn’t realised that setting up a finish line area is like moving house. I overdid it lifting boxes and my lower back was giving me grief for the next two weeks. I also hadn’t stretched since the Bear, smart me, which didn’t help. It resulted in me never having been in as much physical pain during an ultra as at Javelina. The posture and gait I adopted to ease my back and knee pain soon put me in trouble with my hip flexors and I strained a muscle in my foot on the rocky course. None of it worried me much, though. Mentally, I was feeling quite at peace. I was sure I wasn’t causing any permanent damage (or I always imagine I am sure with my background in sports injury therapies). I just ran the first loop to get at least some running in and mostly walked the other three.

Limping quite noticeably the last two rounds, a woman put a hand on my shoulder in passing and warmly said something about me showing the most determination of all. It was a sweet gesture, that kindly indicated that I was looking a mess. Despite physical discomfort, I still really enjoyed that headspace where time just seems to stretch, and memories and emotions flow through, rather than being rigidly in place. People passed, and then it was just me and that warm, soft night again.

What stayed with me wasn’t the party atmosphere, but the night falling over the desert, the silhouettes of the Saguaro cacti stretching their arms against the darkening orange and blue sky. The sound of what I first thought were people hollering when a huge moon rose, only to realize we were far from any aid station and I was in fact hearing coyotes. Not all people had greeted each other at daytime, but as the night stretched on, everyone greeted, as if they were in desperate need for these short little exchanges, those few warm words of encouragement in the light of two headlamps before heading off into the darkness again, alone.

I finished in the small hours in a time of 20:45 with no familiar face around, finding a lift with another runner to the hotel where friend and highly accomplished ultrarunner Tammy Massie had kindly invited me to crash in her and her pacer Juliette Cleaves Brundige’s room. Tammy, ever determined and having finished before me, got up again soon after to cheer on the last runners coming in. Juliette and I opted for breakfast instead. Recovery tasted of frozen yoghurt and painkillers. That night, all three of us nursed our aching legs in a shared Phoenix motel room while happily sipping fireball whiskey and admiring the 80s fashion in reruns of Miami Vice – a weekend just like summer camp for ultrarunners.

In some places, streams had diverted onto trails, turning them into creeks. Sometimes the mud was so deep that you had to worry about losing a shoe in it and some downhills were so slippery that moving forward reminded of an unstable skiing experience. And there’s a reason you have to qualify for this race — the 101k distance from Courmayeur to Chamonix includes 6100m accumulated positive altitude change.

But this was part of what I’d signed up for – and the UTMB series is a world-famous event around Mont Blanc through three countries and heart-stopping scenery — winning the lottery to take part is a privilege, and whinging about it seems out of place. Why would I not enjoy it and why keep going if it’s no fun?

Mainly, neither my body nor my head were up for it.

I’d rolled my ankle badly three weeks earlier and was wearing an ankle brace, had trained a pitiful average of about 20k a week for the three months since the NorthFace100, had just gone through a relationship breakup, moved house, renovated while working, and felt completely wiped out.

If it had been any other race, I would have cancelled. But it was the UTMB series CCC, which you need to qualify for and then win the lottery to take part.

And — most of all — my mum had decided to support me for the first time at a race. I was immensely grateful for this, and a little scared, unsure of whether her presence would make running easier or harder. I hadn’t lived with her since age 13 and feeling supported wasn’t a sensation I naturally associated with her.

I crossed the start line with nearly 2,000 runners ahead of me and there wasn’t much running for the first two hours, just a long line of people as far as the eye could see.

We shuffled our way up mountain sides like a determined procession of ants. At one point, as we were filing onto a single track from a wider road, there was complete standstill for at least 20 minutes.

The race felt commercial compared to the smaller trail races I’d come to love. There was a lot of expensive new gear flashing about, but I saw little of the social fun and camaraderie normally shared at trail runs.

I even saw someone going out of his way to hinder another runner from passing, several times, even though we were at the back of the pack. If that guy blocking the way was doing so because he wanted to win, he really needed to hurry up.

The views were beautiful but I felt frustrated and my mind wasn’t in a good place. The breakup saga was running loops in my head, my ankle hurt with every uneven step, and come nighttime, I was feeling truly miserable.

With the lack of normal camaraderie on the trail, all I wanted was to catch up with my mum at Champex-Lac aid station, get a hug and some supplies and warm clothes from her to replace the ones that were now wet despite the rain jacket.

When I finally arrived and searched high and low for her, I received a text learning that her bus was running too late for her to get there in time.

The exhaustion of ultra running can make one emotionally vulnerable and bring up a range of unprocessed old feelings, and as I drudged on through the rain and mud feeling cold in my wet gear, I was certain that my mother, who was spending her day chasing after me in a bus, didn’t care enough about me to be there when I needed her. Highly embarrassing in hindsight.

At some stage though I made my peace with the situation and stopped thinking that if this event wasn’t fun like other runs I’d done, or if the interactions and support I wished for weren’t there, it was going wrong.

Each race has its own challenges and all I had to do was to figure out how, not whether, to deal with those particular ones at hand. They say running while tired is good training for the next race. Moving forward while tired, sad and frustrated is also really good training, especially mentally.

As I came into Trient aid station, my mum shrieked with excitement on seeing me, being glad to have finally caught me. We gave each other a big hug and were so happy that a man standing next to us just watched us with a big smile on his face.

She was as bright as she could be at 2am. I was worried about her and told her to head back and get some sleep.

“I’ll be okay, I feel good,” my 68-year-old mother said in an upbeat mood.

And indeed, hours later, I saw her again at Vallorcine aid station, having stayed up all night traveling about to support me, with only small naps while waiting. That’s pretty impressive.

By sunrise, there was only one big climb and descend left to tackle and I was in awe of the mountain tops towering over the morning mist as if they were floating on a white lake.

I thought of mum waiting at the finish, and my friend Manuel Hartl who’d driven down from Frankfurt to meet me after the race.  Things were looking up. Once I was over the last climb, I ran all the way to Chamonix in happy anticipation of seeing them.

At 25:33:38, I made it with less than an hour to spare before the cut-off. But I’d been lucky to avoid further injury in difficult and slippery terrain and persisted despite feeling down.

Also, the experience and shared time in Chamonix around the race strengthened the bond between my mum and me, at least for a while, and that’s very precious.

At the official post-race dinner, she looked incredibly pleased among all the runners and developed an interest in the sport. Soon she told me I should be doing more front-foot running like Scott Jurek.

A woman who only runs after taking precautions against anything from rattle snakes to serial killers has not only run dozens of iconic ultramarathons but also Badwater, a 135 mile race through America’s Death Valley.

Tammy Massie, a mathematical statistician who earned her Ph.D. in biostatistics, handles fear by preparing for the unknown.

Wearing mostly pink on the trails, with a few flowers and stuffed toys mixed in, I met Tammy as she ran with brightly colored snake-proof gators on a 90 °F day. Yes, she said, they were a bit hot, but better than getting bitten by a rattlesnake.

Tammy also carried pepper spray to deter the potential wayward cougar, and an emergency beacon so that her husband could find her body if she falls off a cliff.

It wasn’t rattle snakes or cougars that finally took her apart during a race though. It was something nobody can control or take precautions against, and it was devastating. Her mother became terminally ill.

Tammy tried to cope through sport, but finally, in the middle of the Vermont 100 Mile ultramarathon, she had enough and broke down. Sitting on a log, all she could do was sob. She was done.

Her mother used to be her cross-country coach and they had bonded over her races. She used to cheer for Tammy at the finish line, but during this race she was in hospital and Tammy didn’t know how to deal with the certainty of losing her.

Recalling all those years together made the tears flow faster, and she couldn’t care less about the time ticking by. She knew she was about to miss the next cut-off and it was irrelevant.

But suddenly, it was exactly this bond, these memories of shared experiences, that shook her up.

“I harnessed my inner self and said, you know what, my mum wouldn’t want me to be sobbing, she’d want me to be out there finishing the race and making her proud.”

She picked herself up and ran for hours to the finish, beating every cut-off along the way.

“I think running helped me. It was a little bit grounding,” she said about training in the months that followed.

“With ultrarunning there is that part of you where you learn what you’re made of, how strong you are, and what adversarial things you can handle and face.”

Running was an opportunity to reminisce about her mother and honor their connection.

What helped during the darker moments was a sense of gratitude, she said.

“What I find helpful is to appreciate the views, appreciate the journey, appreciate the other runners on the course.”

“If you appreciate everything you see, you see the flowers, you see the sunrise, the stars, it really makes it all worthwhile.”

In addition to having done about twenty 100 milers, Tammy has also completed the notorious Badwater race from the lowest point in the continent to, in the old days, Mt. Whitney, although the last big climb is no longer included.

The race is held during the hottest time of the year in July.

“The year I did it, it was about 125 °F, that’s about 50 °C during the hot part of the day.”

Runners diligently stick to the white side strip of the road to avoid the even worse temperatures on the asphalt. Despite the unbearable conditions and many moments of doubt, Tammy persisted and ultimately beat the clock to the finish, after 47 and a half hours on her melting feet.

“You never know what you can do until you put one step in front of the other or go out and set some goal and try to do your hardest,” she said.

“Physical possessions people can steal or destroy or you can lose, but not this sense of accomplishment, that pride.”

Tammy considers running ultra events a privilege because just a few decades ago, women weren’t even allowed to participate in marathons. And whenever she finds herself in a place where doubts threaten to overwhelm her, she remembers all the people who have believed in her throughout her life. People like her mum, her family, her friends.

“If they believed in me, I should believe in myself.”

Want to get into ultra running but don’t know how to fit it around your kids? Get inspired to become an ultra marathon parent from a mom and personal trainer who has run some of the world’s toughest 100 milers. Your kids might actually love you for what you do.

Ana Braga-Levaggi’s family knows the drill. Getting up at an ungodly hour, watching her disappear into the darkness and then spending the next 30 hours making sure she doesn’t die.

Ana has run some of America’s toughest 100 milers, including Leadville, Wasatch and Western States. These runs aren’t stage races. Runners have to keep moving day and night through harsh terrain, with cut-offs between 30 and 36 hours, depending on the event. Like many others, she is an ultra marathon parent who fits her training around her family.

Born in Brazil, the 55-year old has lived in California’s Mill Valley for 30 years and discovered a love for ultrarunning after the birth of her children.

“After I had my second daughter in 1999, I thought I needed to get in shape. By then I’d just run two marathons and thought, okay, lets take it to the next level.”

Her first 50k race was a fabulous experience. “I walked the uphills and I ran the downhills and flats and I finished the race, so I was totally hooked.”

These days, 50k races are mere training runs to prepare for 100 milers. She has finished eight. To Ana, the right mental attitude is just as important as physical training when it comes to earning her 100 mile finisher buckles.

“Try to get into every single station with a smile,” she says.  “You are here because you want it. If you’re going through a bad patch, you can always think it’s going to pass, and you’re going to get through and you’re going to be just fine.”

A high pain threshold helps too. Ana had both of her children without anesthesia. Agony is something she expects and, unless she’s injured, doesn’t spend time worrying about it.

“It’s just pain,” she says.  “It’s going to go away when I stop and feel better.”

Her calorie intake is meticulous and she sticks to 200 calories an hour, even counting the number of biscuits she carries to ensure her intake is adequate. She has even sewn extra pockets onto her skort (a cross between shorts and a skirt) to store food and gear.

But sometimes, the digestive system doesn’t take kindly to endless hours of intense exercise and runners can have trouble keeping solids down.

This was a particular problem at the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run across Utah’s Wasatch mountain range and which advertises itself as “100 miles of heaven and hell”. Cumulative elevation gain is nearly 25,763 feet and much of the race is at altitude – the highest point is over 10,480 feet.

“At Wasatch, my stomach shut down at night and I couldn’t eat anything, but food is what keeps you going in an ultra, so if you can’t eat, you can’t move forward.”

Gels kept her energized – no less than 48 of them. If you have never tried an energy gel, count yourself lucky, because the idea of downing nearly 50 of these slimy sugar portions would probably make you gag. But disgusting or not, those gels got her to the finish – with seven minutes to spare.

Ana’s training leading up to a 100 mile run usually includes spinning and weight training in addition to 100 miles of running a week. Working as a fitness trainer makes finding the time easier – she can do some of her training with her clients.

Even much of her spare time is about sports. Ana helps youths foster a positive body image and understand the benefits of an active lifestyle as a volunteer coach for 4^th grade through 8^th grade. You can also find her manning aid stations at various races.

“It’s wonderful to give back to the community. If I’m not running a race and I’m available, why not come and help.”

Her husband Chris, a keen biker, is very supportive of her passion.

“My husband is very involved and hands on, whether he paces me or in giving me what I need.”

And her daughters don’t know it any other way – they time her breaks during races and encourage her on. It sounds like a tiring job, but they’ve found a lot of inspiration in their mother’s achievements.

Her younger daughter Annika also loves to run, doing well in cross-country and track. Her older daughter Bella is a freshman in college – and she recently wrote an essay about growing up with an ultra marathon parent. It’s a special tribute, and as Ana starts reading, she has trouble holding back the tears.

Some rewards come in the form of finisher buckles, others in the love and appreciation of family.

***

Essay by Bella Levaggi, Ana’s daughter

Describe the world you come from – for example, you family, community or school – and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations

The world I come from is bleary-eyed, mud-splattered, and tastes like Gatorade. It’s thirty-hour periods of intense stress, unfamiliar states, and five hours naps in a Volkswagen camper van parked next to a trail. It’s the life of an Ultra Runner’s daughter.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, Ultra Runners are uniquely inspirational basket cases who enjoy running one hundred mile footraces. They put themselves through excruciating blisters, dehydration, and fatigue… only to come out smiling.

My mom joined this cult of crazies when I was seven. She’s appointed my dad, sister, and me to spearhead her crew teams, and has dragged us across the West, all in the pursuit of adventure. But you know what they say about adventure: it’s pure horror enjoyed from the comfort of retrospect.

The starting gun always goes off at four in the morning, and the next thirty hours are gruelling for everyone. Obviously, my mom gets it the worst, with the actual running, but crewing for her comes with its own stresses.

It’s my responsibility to keep my mom on schedule when she stops at various checkpoints scattered along the racecourses. I’ve become an expert at proclaiming the time and then obnoxiously prodding my exhausted mother up out of her camping chair once her allocated period of rest spills into overtime.

On paper, the job sounds easy, but in reality it’s a handful of heart-thumping minutes of crushing responsibility that carries the weight of eternity.

If I mess up, my mom runs the risk of falling behind and suffering a disqualification. What heightens the intensity and reward of these races is that they require us to band around our runner in a rightly oiled machine of energy and focus.

Amidst the blood, sweat, and Power Bars, though, there’s something satisfying about the end, when the four of us huddle within the medical tent. Ultra running brings us together at an epic level where my perception of my mom transcends from “personal chauffeur/macaroni maker” into hero.

The interesting thing about the word “crazy” is that it can denote insanity or passion. What my mom does is imbued with a dose of both. I grew up reading stories about people who are just like her. So it’s with her courage that I write my often condemnatory columns about social problems in my school newspaper.

It’s with her zeal that I spent hours interning for a publishing agency in the hopes of cracking the code to discover the qualities of a strong editor. And it’s her spirit – and the knowledge that I contribute to its preservation – that pushes me to pursue my passions, even when they seem a hundred miles out of reach.

I do picnic runs, literally, trotting along with self-baked banana bread in my pack and taking 11 hours for my favourite 48k run, enjoying the wildlife, the flowers and trees, and stopping to listen to the lyrebirds or water gurgling in a nearby creek.

At the Miwok 100k Trail Run in California’s Marine Headlands near San Francisco, however, I had to hurry up, as the cut-off is 15:30 hours. After all my slow training, I didn’t know if would manage and am glad I didn’t check the cut-off earlier. I might not have attempted it otherwise.

When I applied, I was dealing with some health issues and felt pretty down in general. Then a running friend came to the rescue, more accidentally than planned – Steve Reagan.

Steve frequently struggles with injuries that keep him from running but not from talking everyone he meets into trying for more than they think they can achieve.

I had bumped into Steve in 2008 in Mongolia at a trail race, that offered a 42k loop and an optional 58k add-on, for those crazy people who wanted to run a 100k.

I’d only ever done one road marathon before and wanted to try my first trail marathon. But Steve, sitting there in his Western States 100 Mile finisher t-shirt, is the sort of guy who can make any trail adventure, no matter how mad, sound sensible.

The day before the race, Steve explained to me that if I signed up for the 100k distance, I would be allowed to continue beyond 42k loop to see how far I could go while still getting my 42 finisher shirt (terribly important).

However, if I remained signed up for the marathon distance, I would not be allowed to continue for insurance purposes.

“You’ve already done 42k, now you can see if you can perhaps get a little further, 45k, 50k?,” he ventured.

That made sense, right? Try something new. I switched to the 100k and finished – in first place. Not with a winning time, it took me 17 hours, but there were only three women and one dropped out due to injury. Not a bad introduction to ultrarunning.

Late last year then, Steve contacted me to alert me of an approaching deadline to enter the Miwok 100k lottery, an outstandingly picturesque and hilly trail race with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. I got in and couldn’t believe my luck. It gave me a massive boost and a newfound excitement for (slow) running.

In his element, Steve then also talked me into signing up for the Western States training camp. Given that the chance of getting into the actual race via lottery is about 5% at first try, the training camp is a great way to experience much of those beautiful trails over three days of fun – including aid stations, bus transport to the start and lots of great, and some legendary, people.

Further, Steve also got me in touch with his friend Erika French-Arnold, who was so generous to organise a pacer for Miwok for me, her friend Sean McPherson. Well, all this was too good an opportunity to pass up and I booked my flights.

And then I realised that the overall cut-off at Miwok was 15:30. Whoops.

My last two 100k races, the NorthFace 100 in Australia and the Mont Blanc CCC in Europe had taken me 19 and 25 hours respectively, and even my fastest time of 17 hours in Mongolia I’d have to improve by 1.5 hours to finish Miwok.

I had two options – either go at my usual slow pace and miss the cut-off (not good) or go at a much faster pace and blow up later (also not good). But I had over three months. What would happen if I trained more, joined some speed session with UpCoaching in the Blue Mountains and give it a shot?

I started doing two back-to-back slow, long runs and a half hour speed session a week, plus swimming. Then I worked out splits to have short-term goals during the race and loaded a playlist onto an iPod engraved with “no pain, no cake” – a gift from German friend and Ironman finisher Manuel Hartl.

Come race day, I indeed didn’t stop to smell the wildflowers, take photos or sit down to munch banana bread. And although I remember some of the stunning views along the coast and the great volunteers, much of the day went by in a blur.

But that doesn’t mean having any less of an experience.

Sometimes when traveling with family as a kid, I got so attached to a beautiful landscape that I didn’t want to leave. I’d stand at my favorite spot and breath deeply, imagining how the oxygen that had touched everything in that area would enter my lungs and cells, and become part of me forever.

I thought that way, I would never have to feel separate from a place that was dear to me, because we’d had shared the same air and become part of each other.

I still feel like that when I run. I might not remember all I see, but those are only the conscious memories. When the last bit of energy leaves me but I keep going, it feels as if I reenergize from the natural environment around me and become part of it. It’s a good feeling. I’m not missing anything running – I’m experiencing it in a different way.

I was also grateful for exchanging with every single runner who overtook me, whom I overtook or who was coming the other way, either a “Well done!”, “Good job!”, or a “Great work!”. On what other occasion to you get to hear and say that all day long?

I was glad to see my friend Steve at several aid stations, to give me a hug and encourage me on and wait for me at the finish line.

He looked after me when my body had realised the race was over and didn’t feel like moving anymore and made sure I washed any potential poison oak off me that is prevalent on parts of the trail.

I was grateful for the smiles and encouragement from the aid station volunteers, and I was so happy to experience having a pacer for the first time ever, Sean McPherson, whom I’d never met before and who still journeyed to the race to support a stranger.

The camaraderie in the ultrarunning community blows me away again and again. And what difference it made to have him with me the last 20k, to run together and know he was there to help me keep moving and finish.

Taking deep breaths on such days gives me more than stopping to smell the roses. It feels like living through a condensed form of life’s highs and lows, while learning to handle them with the help of nature, friends and supportive connection.

As I run, I feel deeply grateful for my health and strength, and for all those utterly kind and inspiring people out there – be it those running, volunteering, crewing, organizing the race or making it all happen in some other way.

Sometimes it’s good to train less, take care of injuries, and take a rest. But sometimes, doing what one loves is healthier than to keep shrinking away in the face of whatever drags one down.

And in the end, I finishing Miwok in 14 hours and 12 minutes. For some days after, I was the happiest person I could possibly be.

Trails in Motion offer an inspiring mix of insights from around the world.

In the 2015 edition, Nikki Kimball’s quest to set a new record on the 273-mile Long Trail in Vermont stood out in particular.

Nearly an hour long, the story takes viewers through all the highs and lows of Kimball’s FKT attempt with vivid visuals and brutal honesty.

It is an emotionally raw account of what ultrarunning takes, both in terms of personal resolve and team work. Kimball talks candidly about her battle with depression as well as the sources of strength that fuel her.

Trails in Motion also showcased many other stunning works that inundated viewers with breathtaking landscapes and portraits of runners from across the globe. And in a noticeable show of equality, the representation of male and female athletes on screen was 50/50.

The sport has become increasingly popular among female athletes, and the selection of films clearly reflected that.

To find a screening near you and for more information, visit http://www.trailsinmotion.com

Listen to the full interview with Karen Low:

Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have picked Karen Low for a runner. A heavy smoker for two decades, getting into running for health and fitness didn’t just help her steer clear of cigarettes, she also dropped 20 kilos along the way.  

“I gave up smoking in 2006, so I was in that…replacing a bad habit for a better habit, and running was it,” Karen says when dropping by for a cup of tea with two of her training buddies from the Mackay Roadrunners, Matt Stevens and Janelle Tilse.  

They are in Katoomba for the Six Foot Track Marathon – a scenic but very hilly 45k race in the Blue Mountains that has runners chase each other through rivers, and over single tracks and dirt roads all the way from Katoomba in the iconic Blue Mountains National Park to Jenolan Caves. The total ascent is more than 1,500 meters.  

The race attracts athletes from around Australia and usually fills up within minutes of registration opening, due to its popularity. But the experience of runners can vary widely, especially when it comes to Cox’s river crossing.

Matt Stevens, who is always easy to spot because he is usually a head taller than everyone else, says the river level was “up to the knees” on race day, to which Janelle laughs, “yeah, right, up to the neck!”  

Karen trained for months to do her first Six Foot Track and finished in 06:09:12 – a great result, especially when you think that just a few years ago, Karen was struggling to even run 5k on the flat.  

After devoting most of her life to working and raising her three daughters, Karen realized she needed a lifestyle change after an accident and decided to get off the cigarette and lose some weight. She turned to running for health and fitness.  

“I hadn’t run for many years, so getting the body back into shape to run has been good,” she says.  

Starting slow is important to get your body used to the sport, and it doesn’t mean you’ll see less of a result. Karen says she noticed the weight just dropping off her once she started training, first towards the goal of running and walking a 5k and then slowly building up to longer distances, all the way to running marathons.  

“I did my first marathon last year and my first half marathon the year before, and both of those training plans helped me to build in a good mileage and look at how to train […] and get some confidence to do that.”  

Leading up to the Six Foot, she was running up to 90k a week, a far cry from her comparatively sedentary lifestyle  just a few years back. Investing so much time and effort leading up to a race makes crossing the finish line even sweeter. 

“We’ve probably been going hard at it for three months and you don’t know until the end [if it works out]. So the jubilation coming down the hill [at the finish] and to think your plan’s held up…yay!”  

For Karen, running is also great to clear her head after work and to spend time in nature. And apart from the obvious health benefits, it’s the social aspects that matter to her, the people she runs with and the way her family responds.  

“My kids think I’m great, and my husband,” she said, with tears in her eyes.  

“My daughter texted me saying I’m a champion. That’s what’s good about it.”  

And the next goal? A sub four-hour road marathon, said Karen – and her running friends are confident she’ll smash it.  

***

Doing the hard yards is always easier in good company, and if you are in the Mackay area in Queensland and are thinking of turning to running for health and fitness, the Mackay Roadrunners offer a deluge of support. I’m biased  as I trained with the club for over a year in 2010/11 and loved the camaraderie.  

The Mackay club offers several weekly runs, long and short, marathon training groups, club competitions and large events like the Mackay Marina Run with thousands of runners participating in the half marathon, 8k and 5k distances.  

And while you are there, also check out the Hamilton Island Hilly Half Marathon in the idyllic Whitsundays near the Great Barrier Reef – by far one of the most scenic half marathons you’ll ever come across, smack bang in the middle of paradise.      

50 Shades of Green – or so it looked as the sunlight fell through leaves and ferns. But I wasn’t exactly bounding along with 7.2 kilos on my back and every step hurting after an intense speed session two days earlier.

I had gotten up early to jog the three kilometres from Katoomba to the start of the 45 kilometre Six Foot Track before it got hot, planning to do the track twice over two days.

While I had booked accommodation at Jenolan Caves and only carried a change of running gear, toothbrush and light merino clothes to sleep in, I also had a stash of emergency gear with me including a police supplied emergency beacon, compression bandages, whistle, map, emergency blanket and two torches.

Including four litres of water, trail food and 6 slices of home-made banana bread, my running pack was filled to the brim.

From Explorers Tree at the start of the Six Foot, the trail led down hundreds of steps, over rocks and tree roots through Nellies Glen rainforest and ended in a fire trail in Megalong Valley.

Temperatures were forecast to reach 29C but it wasn’t hot yet. Sometimes I was surrounded by clouds of tiny blue butterflies, then admired crickets and caterpillars or saw wallabies and kangaroos bound out of the way ahead of me.

I took it slowly. This was not racing, this was time on my feet. I walked when I felt like it, ran when I wanted to, sat down to have lunch on a hill and just loved spending a beautiful day in the mountains.

Wet Feet

After several kilometres on a single track through the woods following Coxs River, it was time to cross.

I had always thought that wet feet lead to blisters and normally avoided creeks, but in hot weather like this, the cold feeling on my legs was blissful.

Wading through, the water came up to mid thigh-level and a large fish shot off in front of me. I wouldn’t have minded staying longer.

Following a well-maintained fire trail, I made my way up two steep climbs and then followed the track through the woods, again surrounding by the most stunning colours as the light played between the leafs.

The hours flowed by and a few kilometres from Jenolan, the narrow trail looked so peaceful in the evening light that I no longer felt like running, even though it was all downhill.

The heat had dissipated and there was a slight breeze in the warm air, the soft light of the late afternoon sun gleamed through the trees and lit the track with dancing patches of light.

Bellbirds filled the forest with their calls and a couple of wallabies watched me pass but didn’t move. In ten hours, I’d only twice passed hikers, once a group of trail bike riders and trice some cars.

The slow speed had paid off. Instead of feeling sorer, the pain in my hamstrings was gone.

Making my way into the valley towards the Jenolan Caves village, I saw Caves House and the backpacker lodge through the surrounding trees – my home for the night.

The Jenolan Caves are limestone caves estimated to be the world’s most ancient open cave system dating back to around 340 million years ago.

I love visiting them, but right now, I could only think of the breakfast menu I’d studied online – I was already looking forward to the morning.

The Bat

As I checked into the hostel, I was told I had the room to myself – but not so. A bat already occupied the upper bunk.

I’d seen it flying in the hallway and had unsuccessfully tried to direct it outside. Then, suddenly, it was gone.

Inside my room, the bat greeted me in bed. The tiny animal had crawled through the gap under my door and now it sat on one of the pillows, partly covered in cobwebs.

I felt honoured to have such a room mate, but didn’t liked the idea of it potentially wanting to cuddle at night, so I wrapped it in a bed sheet to carry outside.

The bat complained with loud squeaks and, worried I was hurting it, I opened the sheet to look inside. Out came the bat in a flash and once again fluttered in the hallway. I finally caught it once more and released it under a bush.

After a good-night’s sleep, I thought I’d better make the most of the breakfast buffet to strengthen myself for the long way back.

Only when I tried to stand up after a large pile of scrambled eggs, baked beans, toast, croissant and a heaped bowl of musli, I realized I had completely overdone it.

Being upright was so uncomfortable that I went straight back to bed. When I finally got going at close to 10am, I was still so full that every time I tried to run, my stomach just wouldn’t have it. So I walked very slowly for the next three hours.

Could I have known better than stuffing my face until I couldn’t move? Of course, I’ve done several ultras, marathons and many long training runs. But I hadn’t wanted to know better, I’d wanted to have a giant breakfast.

Gluttony comes before the walk. I was well prepared for a late arrival with two flashlights and spare batteries.

Lyrebird Chase

As I came up the narrow serpentine walkway from Caves house, a lyrebird saw me approaching and fled around the bent. There weren’t many places to go on either side, so every time I came around another bent, the lyrebird was still ahead.

We played catch for a while until the path opened up and the lyrebird could have taken the wider walking track ahead. But instead, it chose to take the stairs following the Six Foot Track, looking back at me from the top.

When it AGAIN saw me taking the same direction, it flapped its wings in protest. On spotting me one final time as I reached the top of the stairs, it had enough and made a scene, fluttering towards a lyrebird mate down the hill.

I could only imagine its complaint: This woman has been following me all the way from Caves House! She’s not leaving me alone!

A few kilometres down the track, I came across an echidna that was busily looking through leaves and twigs.

Curling up at first, it soon stopped worrying about me and starting roving through the undergrowth again, coming up to just a few centimetres from my trainers. They mustn’t have smelled so good, as it then turned around and walked off into the forest.

The Thunderstorm

As the day went on, I heard rumbling behind me. While the sky got darker, I could still see a stretch of blue ahead and picked up my speed.

A storm had been forecast, but perhaps I could get away! I imaged the weather chasing me, as it seemed to rumble behind me every time I was particularly slow.

The first front moved past quickly, but the storm couldn’t quite decide what to do that day. An hour later, it was back, this time with a bang.

The sky turned black and it looked like late evening instead of mid afternoon. It started to bucket down, lighting flashed above me and I anxiously counted the time to the sound of thunder to see how close it was.

What would it be like to be hit my lightening? I probably wouldn’t notice, it would happen so quickly. I was happy whenever I made it over a bare hill unscathed.

Already on edge, I jumped when a bellbird rang out right next to me and then laughed about how easily I had worked myself into a fearful state.

I just hoped it would be over by the time I had to cross Coxs river. I didn’t want to stand in thigh-high water when lightening was close by.

Finally, patches of blue sky returned as the dark clouds rushed off. I crossed the river and munched the rest of my banana bread as I trotted through the forest.

Soon, I could see the cliff faces of some mountains ahead – a view that always stuns me. Somewhere on top of those mountains was Katoomba.

The Long Way Home

As I was hopping from stone to stone over a shallow creek, a strange feeling suddenly overcame me. I remembered coming this way yesterday. But yesterday seemed incredibly long ago.

Two days away from mobile and computer screens while being immersed in the Blue Mountains had stretched my perception of time to such a degree that I could hardly believe that as little as one weekend had passed.

By the time I was making my way up the steep section of Nellies Glen it was completely dark. A light drizzle had returned, but the headlamp gave plenty of light and the air was still warm.

I had told police that I would return late, but once I reached the top of the climb, an officer called my phone to check that I was alright in the dark.

This service Katoomba police offers to hikers has always impressed me. When borrowing a free emergency beacon for a hike, which is strongly recommended as most trails in this area have no reception, police keep information about the intended route and expected time of return. If they are worried about someone’s safety, they call.

I assured them I was fine and I ran the last three kilometres into town to drop off the beacon before treating myself to a warm dinner at a nearby restaurant that tolerates guests in runners’ clothes.

I had been out on the trail for 22 hours over two days.

When I closed my eyes to sleep that night, my whole body was buzzing with a sense of aliveness, and I felt complete contentment and peace of mind.

People who, like me, work on computer screens all day sometimes ask me “why do you do that to yourself” when I talk about trail running. I do it because I like feeling this alive, I say.

Heading to the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia? Good choice – it’s hiking and trail running paradise. Here are some of the views you can expect to see.

Races in this area include the Six Foot Track Marathon (March) and the UltraTrail Australia (May).  Both start in or near Katoomba.