The first time I DNF'd an ultra marathon (& this week's marathon training update)

It was 2011 and I was attempting my first ever solo 100km trail run.

It was Tegyn's idea (see previous posts in this series for more about him) and since I looked up to him, if he thought I could do it I was willing to give it a shot.

It was The North Face 100, an event that has since been renamed and taken over by a massive international company but has otherwise remained similar to this early ultramarathon. It was held in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia on some of the most scenic trails I've seen so far in this entire country.

I had lived on and off (mostly on) in the Upper Blue Mountains from early 2006 til mid 2009. I knew the trails well.

I had been an outdoor guide taking people canyoning, abseiling and rock climbing, amongst other bush related activities. Combined with my own outdoor adventures, including multi day hiking and camping trips, I knew the trails around Katoomba, Leura and Wentworth Falls quite well.

It's along their ridgetops, nestled into their cliff faces and through the bottom of their valleys that the then TNF100 ultramarathon route runs.

I felt at home.

I had done some training. I had learned from my last ultra experience (the 48km relay event I'd done with Tegyn, Jasper, and several other friends at the time) and made sure I didn't just rely on my work as an outdoor guide. But, to be honest, I was really hoping that my semi-regular, heavy-pack-carrying work expeditions were sufficient as a training base.

However, if we fast forward past all the nerves, all the excitement, all the pre-race preparation, by the 60km mark I realised that my training had not been adequate. I was hurting, a lot, and I still had 40km and an entire valley to walk down into and out of again.

Somewhere along the way I had met Jamie. A lovely guy, fitter than I and easy to talk to, we fell into step and had been running (jogging) and walking a lot of kilometres already by the time we got to the top of The Three Sisters, an iconic natural landmark that the Blue Mountains is famous for.

Many tourists will simply get off a bus, walk to the lookout, take a selfie or a panorama of the incredible view over the adjacent valley and then find the nearest café. If they're at all curious and even slightly able to walk any distance they may walk the few hundred metres to the lookout right next to the gigantic rock towers (aka the sisters) and take a photo from there. At which point they'll see what I was seeing an hour or so after sunset on that day in May all those years ago: the top of a very, very long set of steep stairs.

In hindsight, I should have pulled out of the race before going down those 1,000 or so stairs. The fact that I couldn't walk down them forwards (without excruciating pain) and did almost the entire lot backwards was an indication of how poorly my body was doing at that point.

I was so focused on the task at hand that it was only when I finally made it to the bottom of the Incredibly steep and difficult Giant Stairway (as these stairs are called) that I realised I was cooked. I needed to pull out of the race but that would have required going back up those same 1000 stairs, this time alone, and I just couldn't beat the thought.

So instead I took a deep breath and walked slowly into the deep, dark, quiet Jamison Valley with Jamie, my best friend for the moment who I'd met only a handful of hours earlier.

Meanwhile, Tegyn was somewhere ahead of me doing the same race but at his own pace.

Jamie patiently walked and talked alongside of me as we slowly got deeper and deeper into this valley, with our head torches lighting a small circle in front of each of us.

It was after the advent of small mobile phones, thus I could text or call (when I had reception) but before our phones got so smart I could check anything on social media or check anyone else's race progress, let alone write a whole Hive post on one (😉).

So imagine my surprise when my very basic phone beeps at some wee hour of the morning, somewhere halfway down to the first of several small creek crossings, deep down in the Jamison Valley.

It's Tegyn. My smart, strong, determined friend had pulled out. With his knee in excruciating pain he was hobbling and had pulled out at the next aid station approximately 10km ahead of me.

I was shocked and then relieved: if Tegyn wasn't finishing I didn't need to either. I decided I would walk to the next check point/aid station to pull out. After all, I could still walk, slowly; there was no need to request an event volunteer or worker to come out to the middle of nowhere. I told Jamie I was going to pull out and he could go ahead without me to see if he could still get a decent time. After checking if I was sure I was okay if he left me alone in the middle of a deep, dark valley, he said goodbye and, to my surprise, immediately started running off.

He'd been walking with me for hours and all this time he could have been running. I felt guilty and grateful all at once. And despite being very tired and sore and alone in the Blue Mountains bush I wasn't afraid. The bush was my home and I was confident the only other people awake at this hour were people slowly, painfully competing or working on the event to support us crazy people.

I made it through the valley uneventfully and started hiking up the steep hill to get out and up to the aid station and I heard a familiar voice. My mate Dylan, from my days of outdoor guiding, had he smiley face sticking out the window of his car. He was picking up competitors who wanted to pull out of the race and couldn't make it back to the aid station. While I could still walk, I was happy to have the lift.

It was somewhere around 2 am and I'd run, jogged, walked and slogged approximately 84km over the last 20-something hours. My first attempt at a solo ultra marathon was over. I was more relieved than disappointed, and very grateful that I was in a better physically and mentally than some of the other people being evacuated!

I got a lift back to the hostel where Tegyn was already in bed and asleep. I snuck in to get my stuff for a long hot shower and eventually poured myself into the other bed in our shared room, after confirming that "yes, it was hard" and "yes, I'm okay".

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With every long distance run I've ever done I've learned things. I learn where my limits are at that time, both physically and mentally. I learn where I need to pay more attention on future training efforts. And I learn what's important to me.

I also learn where I'm naturally strong and that's always an amazing thing to discover.

While this race was DNF ("did not finish") for me I'm hardly ashamed of myself. Disappointed I didn't train well enough to finish? Yes. Personally believe that I'm somehow not good enough as a person for DNF'ing? Hello no.

A lot of runners are ashamed of their DNF's. They'll really hurt themselves to avoid not finishing. For me, I look at it this way:

This was essentially two marathons back-to-back, on difficult trails, up and down hills, all day and half the night.

If that's not an epic achievement, I don't know what is.

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Of course, my running journey didn't stop there. I attempted this same race again, wanting to finish what I started. But that's another story for another day. 😉

Now, it's time for a marathon training update; the whole reason I started this series in the first place. 😄

This week was a bit of a strange one. I've been healthier. And sleeping better than the last few weeks. But I also had my period (though it was much gentler an experience than usual. Yay!). And I also flew interstate to see some of my family, without Brad. Very strange! It's the first time we've been apart for more than half a day for 4 years. 😯

So both the many hours of travel on Friday (to cover the 1000km to one branch of my family) and the additional freedom/lack of my best buddy meant I did my exercise differently.

Since I opted to leave my laptop at home I'm doing this whole post from my phone. Most of my training for this week for this marathon I'm still intending to do at some currently undetermined date will be shared with you through screenshots of my Garmin App. It's too awkward/time consuming to write it all out and it's already taken me more than an hour to type out the 2011 ultramarathon story with two fingers. 😂

So I'll drop photos below of my daily and weekly steps, my recorded runs, my recorded walks (most of which were "tapping walks" - processing stressful/emotional stuff while I was walking) and then a couple of cardio sessions.

This (last) week I managed to layer in a bit more strength/weight training. I thoroughly enjoyed my tapping walks. And I took Brad's suggestion to add in some sprint work.

I ran really fast, yo! Check out the screenshots below!! 👇

All screenshots of my Garmin Connect App. All other photos taken by me, on my phone, during this interesting week of training and life.