“My relationship with running has had quite a short lead in time so it’s not very hard for me to think back to that first run, which kind of changed the trajectory of my life. It was 2022 and the reason I put on my shoes and went out for my first run was because I was living in a remote Northern Territory community in Australia… and there was little else to do!
The community is called Jabiru. I think it has a population of about 350 people. It was previously a uranium mine town and when the mine shut down, everyone moved out. So all that were left was the aboriginal community, and a few people that stayed to work in hospitality.
At university I studied tourism, event management and marketing. I’d dabbled in event management and marketing, but was not yet able to pursue tourism – mostly because I’d graduated during COVID. So when an opportunity came up to work in that field, I took it.
I dragged a friend I’d studied with up to the Northern Territory as well. We were both working the dry season, from about February to November, because during the wet, lots of the roads become cut off. Jabiru is 2 1/2 hours from Darwin and there’s absolutely nothing between those two places. There’s not much else to do in Jabiru either; there are a few resorts and art galleries, and no gym. So after about six months, I decided to start running.
It was really difficult because the temperatures are in the mid 30s during winter, and the humidity is about 80% in the morning. I would go out for a 3k run and come back with a bumping headache because I’d gotten dehydrated. So I bought a hydration bladder and even on my 3 or 4km runs I would carry it on my back.
I’ve always been a dancer and during my cheerleading days we had this challenge to download the Nike Run app and hit 20 km a week. I think we only did it for about two weeks, but while I was in Jabiru, that Nike app was probably the thing that helped get me out the door. It had guided runs and a voice on the app would speak to me. Coach Bennett was his name and he would just be in your ear telling you what pace you needed to go, how you should be feeling right now, making you pay attention to your feet, your lungs and how you’re holding your head and shoulders. It was a great way to distract me from the actual running.
I hit my first 10km about a month into running in August 2022. After that I decided to search for the next half marathon in my home town in South Australia. There was one in December so I signed up right then and there. I can tell you, the temperature down there was very different!
I did my half marathon, finished in Jabiru, and decided to look into doing a year abroad. My Mum and I had visited Queenstown about six years prior and I just remember having the most amazing time there doing all the outdoor activities. So I thought, let’s do another year in tourism, and let’s do it in the adventure capital of the world!
It didn’t quite work out as planned – accommodation in Queenstown was very hard to get. Thankfully Mum had a connection with someone who was around my age and living in Wanaka. We connected and she said, “when you land in Queenstown, let me know and we’ll catch up”. It turns out, she’s a really good runner! And she had 2 rooms in her house available for me and my friend (the same one that had come up to the Northern Territory) if we wanted to live in Wanaka instead. I took her up on that offer and living with her was really what motivated me. I think if I didn’t land in that house with her, my relationship with running would have been incredibly different.
When I did arrive, she was like, “hey, you’ve done 1/2 marathon, are you interested in doing the full marathon?” Funny, after I’d done my half back in South Australia, I wrote this Instagram post and in it I said “I’m not quite sure what’s next, but it’s definitely NOT the marathon. I can’t imagine doing double the distance I did today!” Yeah. I thought that was it, that was the end of my running. Then I landed in this house with this incredible girl who I looked up to, and she dangled the idea of doing the Queenstown Marathon in front of me. So I signed up – and I did it!
Immediately after the marathon I thought, if I want to keep doing this, I need to find something that stimulates me. I don’t think I’m a fast runner by any means, and running flat roads didn’t add a whole lot of value to my life. That’s when I found trails. When you stand on the top of a mountain and you look down, the fact that your legs brought you there, it’s incomparable to any other feeling that I’ve felt before. I didn’t get that same feeling on the flat. And that was kind of the turning point for me.
I started heading to the hills. I did more hill runs, lots of loops of Mount Iron, and from there I entered the 3 Peaks Mountain Race. Unfortunately I got COVID immediately prior to 3 Peaks, so on race day… I was just in God’s hands at that point. I did it. My lungs and legs were screaming at me, but I did it.
Then I had another turning point in May last year. I went through a lot of life changes and I felt very lost, so I began to push myself harder to help me move forward. I signed up to Mt Difficulty, which as the name suggests, is quite challenging. I only signed up two weeks before not realising how much so, until someone tagged me in the Mt Difficulty pictures on social media. It was of people going uphill using all fours. They were using their hands and their feet! And I was like, oh no, what am I in for?
But it was so fun! Just to get back out in the mountains… I was smiling the whole time. I mean, there were a couple of moments where I was definitely not smiling, but overall I loved it and that kind of just solidified the fact that the trails were for me.
Then at the start of last year my gym had a poster on the wall and it said ‘What are your goals for 2024?’ with post-it notes and a pen. I wrote ‘Run an Ultra!’ I have no idea where that came from, I’d never been thinking about it before, but after I wrote it, I knew it was going to happen.
I chose the Kepler Challenge. I had two laptops open at 6:30am on that Saturday morning when entries opened and I still got waitlisted at number 84. That didn’t matter though. I trained anyway and not for one moment did I think that I wouldn’t get in. It wasn’t until about four weeks before the race I finally got offered an entry. I was just about to go to sleep but decided to check my phone before I put it on charge, and I saw the email. I was immediately in tears. I was starting to lose faith, because I never considered a possibility where I didn’t get into Kepler.
So Kepler was my first ultra marathon. Oh… that last 30k of Kepler though… I should have checked what that course looked like too. But I got across the line in 8 hours and 4 minutes. And whilst it would have been great to go under 8 hours, I’m not mad at it at all. I think running the Kepler has just opened up another world of opportunity for me.
There is so much to see when you’re a runner – the adventures and the locations you have access to are wide open – simply because you can run!”
Amy @_lecons
(Wanaka)
Photo taken in Milford
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