Kiwi women blaze a trail in races around the world
Along time ago, in a world that seems far, far away, there was a term that was thrown around in the running scene with careless abandon.
At least among men.
The term, chicked. As in: ‘‘Oh, mate, did you get chicked?’’ As in: ‘‘Did you get beaten by a woman?’’
Yep, it’s chauvinistic. And it’s outdated. And there are several good reasons I haven’t heard it for many years.
One of the main reasons is the rise and rise of phenomenal female runners. I’m thinking especially of trail running, but it applies to other forms of the sport, too.
From New Zealand, women such as Anna Frost, Fiona Hayvice, Mel Aitken and Ruth Croft, for starters, have blazed a trail. Dawn Tuffery won at the national 24 Hour champs – beating all men and women – in 2017.
Internationally, legions of women dominate the sport.
And few are as dominant at present as American Courtney Dauwalter. If you want to think of tough runners – of any gender – you would be hard pushed to think of anyone tougher than her.
At a race called the Moab 240 in Utah, she claimed first place. Man or woman. By 10 hours. And it’s called the Moab 240 because it’s 240 miles – that’s 386 kilometres.
She took 57 hours, and in that time only slept for 21 minutes. Yep, minutes.
Last month, she entered what must be one of the craziest races in the world, Big’s Backyard Ultra in Tennessee.
Participants run laps of a
4.1 mile course each hour until they can’t run any more.
In theory, it sounds more simple than it actually is. I mean,
4.1 miles is only 6.6km – hardly a marathon, right? But every hour?
Dauwalter ran 67 laps, almost
450km, nearly outlasting everyone (Johan Steene of Sweden ran for one more lap to take the victory).
She has beaten the top man 10 times, but it’s not something she dwells on.
Asked by the why she didn’t seem that interested in how many times she won races outright, she shrugged her shoulders and said: ‘‘I don’t keep track of that stuff. Those aren’t numbers that I care enough about.’’
So, take that any dinosaur
who still frets about being ‘‘chicked’’: she doesn’t even care. Gender is irrelevant – competition is queen.
As I said, New Zealand has plenty of its own female runners kicking butt.
New to the scene is Nancy Jiang, who recently returned home after a season racing in Europe.
On the trail running podcast
this week Jiang tells us in gritty detail about what it takes to get to the top – and it ain’t pretty.
Of one race she describes how she felt like her backside was on fire because she was pushing so hard and her muscles were screaming.
In another race, a famous mountain ultra marathon in the French Alps called the OCC, she was suffering bad cramp as she approached the last climb.
She could have pulled out, but instead she thought to herself: ‘‘This is the OCC, I came all this way.
‘‘It was go hard or go home – and home was too far away.’’
Jiang finished fifth, and at the finish line met her hero who had won the race – fellow Kiwi Ruth Croft.
Jiang tells podcast co-host Matt Rayment and me about moving to New Zealand from China as a 5-year-old, and what it was like to challenge the perception held by her family that ‘‘Chinese people don’t run’’.
As she grew up, juggling studies (she’s now a structural engineer) with running, Jiang proved that belief wrong.
Last month, Jiang won the national trail champs at the Crater Rim Ultra in Christchurch.
And along the way she ‘‘chicked’’ almost all the men.
Eugene Bingham and Matt Rayment are hosts of a trail running podcast Dirt Church Radio. Learn more at dirtchurch radio.com or get in touch via email dirtchurchradio@ gmail.com
‘‘This is the OCC, I came all this way. It was go hard or go home – and home was too far away.’’ Nancy Jiang on suffering cramp during a race in the French Alps