Sydney Trailwalker 1999
by David Cannings
May 1999Sunday the 9th of May. Mother’s day, and it started out like any other Sunday morning. It was a beautiful morning, clear skies and as usual I joined the fellow runners at Berowra for our usual hour long run.
I was just starting to get back into the running, having completed the six foot track run (46.6kms) about two months earlier. I couldn’t understand why top marathon runners (not that I am anything like a top runner) only run 2 marathons a year, until I had done the six foot track and understood the intense training involved and what the actual run does to you.
After this mornings run we are standing around talking as usual (and thinking about stretching) when one of the runner’s hit me with the news. Somebody (Community Aid Abroad) were organising a 100km run through the bush. I enjoy the running through the bush, it gives me a time to reflect upon life and appreciate the country that God has made. I only really took up running to help my fitness for my other great passion ie, bush walking, and when I found that I could combine the two together, well, this was bliss.
A 100km run. When, where, why. Then it came, in 19 days from Woolwich to Brooklyn.
The rest of the morning was agonizing. I wasn’t fit for it. There was so much that needed to be done. Who could I contact? How did it operate? So I started to find out more. It took just over a week to get a team together of David Hatley, Alan Mills, Ted West and myself. All of us had run the six foot track in March, were taking a break from serious running and only just starting to get back into it. A similar time for (corporate) sponsorship to be organised and another week to organise the support. We were ready (sort of). We had mapped out our expected times and placing. We were hoping to finish in about 20.5 hours and obtain a top 5 to 10 place.
The day came and we all nervously made it to the start line, where registration was followed by a two hour wait. Then the moment came. In your head you know not to go out to hard to early, to leave plenty in reserve, to be relaxed. But in the pressure of the start all this is lost and you focus on running.
The first section was from Woolwich to Lane Cove, a distance of about 13.5kms, with the first 4 - 5 kms on roads, followed by the bush. We started well and enjoyed a place among the first half dozen teams, sharing a few jokes with each other and letting each other take the lead. When we arrived at Lane Cove we were greeted by the shouts of encouragement from Tani Ruckle (1990 Commonwealth Games Marathon silver medallist ) who told us that we were only 9 mins behind the Gurkhas (already!) and only 1 min behind the next team.
It wasn’t until the next section that the run started to get more tiring. We were running with a team from Franklin’s (team 31) who had sprayed their hair green for the event. We ran with and near them for a while and enjoyed their company and competition.
During the Lane Cove to Thornleigh section I tried practicing a new skill of urinating while running. This, was of course in order to save time and keep the pace going. I was highly embarrassed to realise that the female runner in team 31 was 20 metres behind us. She was good natured about it all, but in future I decided to try to find another way of saving time.
In front were another team in black, who had started out at a frantic pace, yelling at each other to push each other on. We didn’t think that they could keep this going for long. We passed them near Browns Waterhole, where we discovered that they weren’t carrying any water. They appeared distressed and fortunately we had just arrived at a drink stop, so we were able to help them with water.
We continued up what is the normal track when suddenly it detoured up the ‘Step Track’ at the back of Turramurra for about 3 kms, then back on to the track. We almost missed this turn off and were not surprised to find when we rejoined the main track that half of another team were in front of us, even though they had never passed us. The detour had not been well marked and if you took it you lost time.
We had a small break at Thornleigh and continued on to Cherrybrook, where we caught up with team 31 who were coming second and running well and were being spurred on mainly by the female member of this team who informed us that she had never run this far in her life. The shorter break put us second through to the 40km mark at Hornsby. By this time we were tired, but about 45 minutes in front of our estimated scheduled times.
At Hornsby, we again changed our sox, shoes or running cloths. This, along with plenty of water, salt tablets and our support crew (lead by Joy West) were our ‘secret plans’ to help keep us going. The sox changing seemed to work as we didn’t get any blisters. The water was necessary. The support was great. I am still unsure about the salt.
Day light, along with exhaustion was becoming the next issue to face. We didn’t think that we had much chance of catching the team in front, as they were adding time to the distance at each check point. (They were a team of Gurkhas from the Queens Regiment. They had done a 100 km run before as a training program and were the champions in the UK at this.) Only a blow-up by them would see us catch the leaders (not that we ever expected to be this highly placed anyway). We were hoping to make Galston Gorge by dark. We were lucky and managed to get there about 45 minutes before this and was joined by Dean Maddock, who was to walk with us as support to Mt Kuringai. After this it was a race to get to Crosslands before the darkness set in. After some hard running we made it just as it was to dark to see any longer. But this had taken its toll on myself. During the 20 minute break I was suffering badly. My body was shaking with exhaustion and food was hard to eat or digest.
When we started the long climb up to Mt Kuringai, I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. I was holding the team back. The walk seemed to take a long time. At Mt Kuringai we were told that the Gurkhas might be lost, so (after thanking Dean and getting help from Chris O’Neil) we set off at a pace to see if we could catch them, running along the flat bits of the trail at night. Soon, however, the tiredness again set in. We discovered an arrow that pointed in a wrong direction (to Apple Tree Bay, which we fixed) that would have delayed the Gurkhas about 20 minutes. As it proved, they had taken this detour, but they wouldn’t be lost. They were only marginally delayed and would still be over 2 hours in front of us.
During this section I got to really appreciate the abilities of the Gurkhas. They had taken this detour and it would have cost them about 20 minutes (though I have heard other times, which sounded very exaggerated). Even so, they still managed to gain a further 5 minutes on us over this section - and I thought that we were travelling fairly well for about half of the section.
After Berowra I was no longer able to run. All I could do was walk. My feet had swollen and each time I stepped down it was painful. Fortunately after the decent to Berowra Waters (where Chris was replaced by Mark Stanton), it was followed by climbs up too Cowan, so we were not losing to much time.
Then came the last of the sections (where Chris O’Neil again joined us). We knew that the Gurkhas in front of us were not able to be caught. We didn’t know how far behind us the next team were. So we trudged on. First to Jerusalem Bay, where the going down was agony. Then (still at night) up the steepest of hills. Down and up again and finally on a rough dirt road to take us near Brooklyn. But I was too sore to run any of this. Each time my feet moved forward it was a feeling of pain running through my legs. We were going very slow and looking behind to see if any teams were catching us up.
We made it to the dam outside of Brooklyn, still a few kms to go, but at my pace, this was still dangerously slow. Here we meet with our support crew (Joy, Gordon who was to help Joy keep awake at night and Catherine (my finance), who had joined the support at Crosslands). They were going to walk back these last few kms with us.
It was still very dark and the fog around us had set in.
Eventually the inevitable happened. A group came up behind us. We were about 1.5 kms from the end and going slowly. They were about 100 metres behind us and travelling well. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightening, I was hit with a shot of adrenaline. We had traveled all this way and we so close. We could not stop now. So I started running, just like a person who had been put into shock (or more likely panic). My feet no longer hurt (to much) and I shot past the rest of my team, out of the bush track and on to the road. I was in a run and had no time to think. We just ran, trying to out pace the lights that were coming up behind us.
Down the road to a corner … which way do we go … there are no signs, so we just go, then see the signs. We had chosen correctly. Through the park and around the headland on the foreshore we ran and ran and ran. Then we saw the finish line approaching and people cheering. We crossed, exhausted in 18 hours and 56 minutes.
I sat down and couldn’t move.
