EVERYONE'S STORY IS DIFFERENT THIS IS Mine

When I first started running, it was back in 2011.

No, I lie…when I really think about it, my very first stint at running was in 2009 when my neighbour Flick Christmass convinced me to join her relay team for the Perth Marathon. The problem was, Flick had done a tonne of triathlons before we’d met, so she was already full throttle with this running thing. I, on the other hand, had never come across a more stupid idea in my life, but I said yes – there’s absolutely no recollection in my brain whatsoever as to why I said yes, but there you go. There must’ve been an offer of a chocolate bar or vodka cruiser or something is my guess.

I was already a gym member down at my local, so decided to hit the cardio machines a bit more and then run with Flick once a week on the weekends. With only three women on our team, Flick put her hand up to do 2 legs, whilst I and her friend Keely did 1 leg each. I was given a 10km leg – or perhaps it was just under. It doesn’t matter, it was about that distance; it was the shortest of the 4, and I remember all the training that came with signing up for it.

I specifically remember running with Flick around Lake Monger, where she’d teach me to ‘target run’ – run from one lamp post to the next, walk to the next. Run to the next lamp post, walk to the next. We’d do the same along the coast, from Scarborough Beach to Trigg, but use the undulating cycle path hills as our targets – the first time we did it, we drove the distance we’d planned to run, in Flick’s car, and measured it with the odometer – those were the days, hey… without sports apps or GPS watches. Where no one really knew how far they’d run unless they drove the length of it first.

I remember one day on the treadmill hitting the 8km mark and then giving up, feeling like I’d never make it to 10km. I was never told I shouldn’t aim for my race distance in training, so I took that feeling pretty hard. Race day for the Perth Marathon, and my event was the 3rd leg out of 4. Our original order was Flick, Keely, me and Flick. I couldn’t even tell you specifically where I started or where I finished to tag off and hand over the ribbon or baton because it was part of the old course, now defunct, but I do remember it was somewhere along the Swan River south of Perth. My parents and husband came to support me, finding me along the way and when I went to tag off to Flick, it was Keely instead, briefly saying Flick was injured, and then she ran off. Despite hearing Flick had hurt herself, but knowing I’d see her at the finish, the elation that I had just achieved something I never would have normally considered was priceless.

There was no medal either. It’s almost like there’s no proof of me doing that relay!

That was my first experience with running – unfortunately, it wasn’t trail running, but it did ignite a little bit of a fire. I was 29 and I did my 10km in just over an hour.

With no sports watches to guide me or apps to log my training runs, I started to run around my neighbourhood with my beloved blue heeler Patch. No clue how far those runs were, I’d usually take anywhere between half an hour to an hour, and it always felt amazing when I’d finished. Life must have happened after then because when I moved house later that year and took myself further north from the city, I stopped altogether. I was new to the suburb, all my friends and family were a minimum 45 minutes away, and I was bored after work. So I bit the bullet and joined an outdoor fitness club two years later – well that was fun! Because not only did I make new friends, but they all ran! Some of the women had even started what they called the Marathon Maidens club where once a week a bunch of us would meet up at the same corner block at 7pm and do a 3km loop ‘for fun’.

I suppose, looking back on it now, this was where the start of having running mates all began; that experience with Flick and Keely, and then with the Marathon Maidens. The trails didn’t call me until 2015 when I’d interviewed Bernadette Benson for a newspaper story after she won AURA’s 2014 Australian Female Ultra Runner of the Year award, and then convinced me to sign up for Perth’s Wallygrunta 9km, which she was race directing.

It was a fantastic start to my love of trail running.

And now here I am.

KATE DZIENIS EDITOR