Broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters on February 4, 2016. Extreme sports were once considered the exclusive domain of men. Nicky Redl explores the trailblazing world of female ultrarunners. Online story: The sport of ultra trail running has boomed in recent years, with 80,000 ultramarathon finishes in the USA alone last year. The races are…
I had to get to the start line within half an hour or I’d miss it. Stuck in this foreign town, I was lost between winding streets and strange houses, unable to find my race bag, or drop bags, or anything at all. Hadn’t I had some hiking poles somewhere? This was Logan, Utah. Wandering past…
“No peein’ off the porch” is the sign that greets me as I wait on Craig Thornley’s deck. He is in the kitchen to make tea and one of his cats is keeping an eye on me from under a wooden bench. What do Western States runners get up to on their race director’s porch?…
What I remember most about dragging myself up steep, muddy and slippery mountain trails during the 2014 Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc CCC is a sense of embarrassment about hating 90% of it. It was raining from afternoon onwards and come nighttime, the trails looked as you would expect after thousands of people have trodden on wet ground ahead…
Non-runners sometimes critically tell me that runners miss the view, that they should “stop and smell the roses”. I do, in my training runs. 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…
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…
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.
Running Free joins Nicky Redl on her magical journey across awe-inspiring Mongolian countryside, sharing all the pain, pleasure, agony, and euphoria she experienced over the gruelling 100 kilometre Sunrise to Sunset course. It was still dark as we gathered at the start banner of the Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset race. I hopped from foot to foot to stay warm,…