The First Miler

Milers are HARD!

It doesn't matter how many 100k Ultra races you've done, you'll never really be ready for how hard a miler is until you do one. When I was talking to my coach about running my first miler he said, "100k is just the warm-up."

He wasn't wrong.

A hundred miles was always the next thing. Every time I do something hard I seem to need to find something harder, just to see if I can do it.

I knew I could run 100 kilometres, but I had absolutely no idea whether I could run 100 miles. It's "only" another 67 kilometres or so... how hard could it be?

I had a good day time and a bad day time in mind, but if I'm honest all I really wanted to do was finish.

The Kosci Miler, part of Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko by UTMB, has a reputation for being one of Australia's more runnable hundred milers. Lower elevations, runnable trails and plenty of descent.

What the elevation profile doesn't tell you is that the weather at Kosci is a force multiplier. This race is a smiling assassin.

If you're considering the Kosci Miler as your first hundred miler, I'd still recommend it. The trails are generally runnable and the course isn't as relentlessly steep as some other Australian hundred milers. It's the weather that is the wildcard. It can change from sleet to heat in a matter of hours, and that changes the race completely.

Within the first 20 kilometres we'd climbed almost 2,000 of the race's 5,628 metres of vertical ascent into gale-force headwinds and sideways sleet. That was just the start. Over the next 35 hours we dealt with oppressive heat and humidity, thunderstorms, close lightning strikes, more heat and then bloody cold again. It was impossible to prepare for. All anyone could do was roll with whatever the mountain threw at us.

By the first checkpoint I was already over the weather, but otherwise I was feeling good and quietly confident I could hit my good day time.

Then, at around 90 kilometres, everything changed.

I blew out my right ITB. Every step became excruciatingly painful through my knee. My pace dropped to a crawl, the changes to my running mechanics started causing blisters and sore feet, and technical terrain became a nightmare.

I sunk into a very dark place.

Mentally, I ended up somewhere I'd never been before. I genuinely doubted whether I could finish.

With around 30 kilometres still to cover before reaching the checkpoint where Jane was waiting and where Joey would join me as a pacer, I honestly couldn't see a way forward.

I sent Joey a message explaining what had happened and that I was well behind schedule.

His reply was short.

"Don't Fukkin Quit!"

So I didn't.

I'd gone from chasing my goal time to wondering whether I could even beat the cut-offs. My entire race became about reaching Jane and Joey.

It took forever, but eventually I got there.

They patched me up, got some food into me and Joey made it his mission to get me to the finish line.

Every checkpoint became a reset. Food, fresh gear, tape, encouragement... whatever problem had developed over the previous few hours, Jane somehow managed to solve it before sending me back out again.

Then Joey took over.

The funny thing is we'd only met in person the day before the race.

A week earlier he'd offered to pace someone he'd never met after his partner Rose met Jane at Kosci the year before. Looking back now, the combination of Jane looking after me at every checkpoint and Joey keeping me moving on the trails is absolutely 100% the reason I made it through those final 50 kilometres.

Joey can genuinely talk underwater.

Somehow he always knew when I needed encouragement, when I needed a laugh and when I needed someone to stop me feeling sorry for myself. His combination of encouragement, tough love and absolute refusal to let me quit was exactly what I needed.

I came into Bullocks Flat defeated.

In my head I simply couldn't compute how I was going to finish in time. I was moving as fast as I physically could and it wasn't fast enough. No matter how hard I willed it, my body wasn't listening, and all that stood between me and the finish was the climb back to Thredbo.

I said to Joey,

"Mate, I'm not quitting... I just don't see how we can make it."

His reply was simple.

"I'll get you there."

Somewhere between "the good stuff" Jane managed to find, fresh blister treatment from the medics, a Red Bull and Joey refusing to let me give up, something changed.

I switched gears mentally.

It stopped being about me and my pity party.

I wasn't going to let everyone else down.

The drugs combined with Joey's drill sergeant encouragement somehow got me back to my normal pace.

For the first time in hours...

I was actually having fun again.

Then there was the finish line, 

It's impossible to explain that feeling to someone who hasn't lived it. Crossing the finish line of my first hundred miler is a lot to process!

There was relief.

There was euphoria.

There were plenty of tears.

And finally, the realisation that I'd actually done it.

Now, when I think back on my first miler, I don't think about the finish time.

I don't even think about the distance.

I remember the people.

Jane, who somehow always had exactly what I needed at every checkpoint.

Joey, who refused to let me quit when I'd already convinced myself I couldn't finish.

Friends following the tracker through the night and sending messages of encouragement I'd often read hours later.

My first miler wasn't mine.

It was ours.

It was something a lot of people helped me finish.

Experiences like this are one of the reasons Track3D exists.

A race like this isn't just a finish time or another medal in a drawer. It's months of preparation, moments where you question yourself, the people who carry you through when you can't do it alone and memories that stay with you long after the pain and doubt disappear.

That's what I want Track3D to capture.

Because sometimes what matters most isn't the race itself.

It's the journey that got you to the finish line.