BTU110 Race Report, by Ursula Adams
BTU110 RACE REPORT 110 by Ursula Adams
It was a chilly yet glorious Saturday morning kicking off the 2022 Brisbane Trail Ultra. As I warmed myself by the heaters at the start of the race and chatted with fellow competitors, I felt a wave of emotion rising. Luckily my main support crew sister Jacinda had me covered and got me to do some mindful breathing just before I hit the start line. We hugged it out, and then we were off!
It took a little while for my feet and hands to warm up, so I kept those gloves on throughout that first section. I hit Checkpoint 1 feeling in fine-form and was so grateful to see the vollie Mark’s familiar smiling face and have him tell me to “Keep Hammering”. This was the perfect message, as I’d just finished listening to the famous Cam Hanes audiobook Endure and his motivational messages on how to work hard and endure.
From there, I passed Township/Sth Boundary and was faced with my first pickle. Which way to go….left or right….confusion set in….I looked at my Garmin map which was telling me left…I called my crew to check and they weren’t 100% sure….some hikers came in but heck they had no clue! I made my first mistake and went left to realise I then arrived at Checkpoint 2 too early. Stress and panic set in! Asking the vollies what to do, calling the race director and searching for Cora somewhere at Mt Nebo School. It was not only me who had made this critical mistake; others had done the same thing due to people having tampered with the signs. I had wasted enough time, so I restocked my hydration & nutrition and set out on my way again.
On I went until I hit the first of many brutal hills to conquer. First up, the dreaded Township Break!! For those of you who don’t know it imagine, a downhill slog of rocky gravel with nothing to slow you down and should you slip well, if you do, enjoy the ride because it’ll likely be one hell of a slippery slide on your butt. After I got up and down this monster of a climb, the first sign of physical pain started to set in. I struggled with physical leg pain from here on in, which I’d never endured before quite like it.
I then had to set out in search of Jolly’s Lookout in order to amend my mistake from earlier. Mentally I was in a deep dark hole. I felt so incredibly disappointed over the last 15kms and was beating myself up about it….a lot. I became overwhelmed with sadness and found myself running and bursting into tears, crying, like full-blown unstoppable tears pouring out of my eyeballs. Finally, I hit Jolly’s and actually stopped for a moment, took in the beautiful scenery, asked some tourists to take a photo of me and put a smile on my face. From there, I knew something needed to change.
I wondered what I would tell a friend if they made a mistake.
I would treat them with compassion and kindness and, most of all encourage them to keep going regardless. So, I changed my mindset from here on in. I yelled in the woods when no one was around, shouting,
“I’m proud of you regardless of the outcome Ursh”, “You are strong” and “You don’t give up”.
I chugged along but with a different mindset and got to Checkpoint 5 where I was so ecstatic to see my support sister Jacinda again and two other beaming, smiling, encouraging faces - my Mum and Cousin Nicky that I did not expect to be there. I sat momentarily and found Jacinda had made a new friend Matty who assessed my knee pain and then gave me one of the most ruthless massages of my life. But I am so grateful as this got me through to the next checkpoint in much less pain.
By Checkpoint 6 the night was setting in and it was the last time I’d see my crew till the finish line. Again, I needed a bit of pepping up and thankfully another vollie Pete got my head back into the right mindset and I got in and out with a quick turnaround and back on track. Running into Mt Cootha in the darkness of the night only guided by your headtorch in search of pink ribbons on trees is so bizarre! Every now and again I did catch up to others and was so appreciative for the temporary company to know I was still on the right track. I felt like I started becoming disoriented and hypervigilant because when you’re out there on your own you have no clue whether you’re going the right way or not and the last thing you want is to do any more kms than what you’ve already done. Being guided by my headtorch all I saw was darkness in front or random beady eyes in the bushes of possums or at one point a curious owl staring down upon me. I thought that wise old owl was the perfect sign telling me once again “Ursh you’ve got this, just put one foot in front of the other, you’re so close now”.
Finally, I came out of the trees and into suburbia and road. By this point I was so physically fatigued, mentally, and emotionally exhausted and just physically done. I wanted to get back to my 1980s shabby chic Kangaroo Point motel and get into bed. From here on in I said to myself you run some, you walk some, you run some, you walk some till you reach that finish line. I kept this up and was grateful for the smiling police officers directing me across the roads, to the volunteers at the last water station and the random strangers in the night encouraging me to keep on moving. Then I reached those last gruelling Kangaroo Point stairs where I feel I dragged my leg up those to then find just around the corner there was another set of stairs…..how cruel!
Crossing that finish line and stopping my watch at a total of 113.93km was the most remarkable feeling. What on earth had I just accomplished? As a newbie runner of just under one year, these ultra-marathon goals I thought were entirely unattainable. I had just blown that idea out of my pretty little brain. What remarkable things we as humans can accomplish should we put our minds to it. And for the icing on the cake, I knew I just wasn’t quite right coming into the race and sure enough the dreaded covid got me for the first time at the end!
