It exists in the fringes - few ultra runners are even aware of it, and saying “I’m going to Coast 2 Kosci” to someone will always prompt follow up questions. To say this is a grass roots event would be understating it. Around me are a couple of hundred other people all gathered for the same purpose - to see the starters take off for the C2K. And that is why at 5:15am on a Friday morning in December I’m standing on a beach in the southern New South Wales town of Eden - a small whaling village 500km south of Sydney. Except it isn’t normal at all - there’s nothing unremarkable about ultra long distance running. All of this leads us to think a 50km race is just 8km longer than a marathon, and a 100km race is just two 50’s, and so on. ‘Backyard’ ultra’s, hotel room marathons, and more. The same can be said for ultra marathons - marathoners looking for the next thing, the next rush, the thing that keeps them at the outer limits of the community's understanding of endurance.Ģ020 has seen a number of mind-bending displays of endurance. Now we see an increasing number of occasional joggers sign up for a marathon - not necessarily to chip away at PR’s or master the craft, but to tick it off a ‘bucket list’. Decades ago, marathons were for serious, committed, year-round runners only. We live in a time where even the most extreme events and distances are normalised - very few things can shock us now. At 240km (150 miles), it’s one of the largest recognised single stage races in Australia. If a 100 mile race is life in a day, Coast 2 Kosci (C2K) includes the afterlife. Feel bad? Stick it out 10 more miles and see how you feel. Feeling good? Wait 10 miles and see how you feel. Nothing is permanent except impermanence itself. They say a 100 mile race is life in a day - you experience it all over the course of such a distance.
We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land we passed through while covering this race - the Yuin people in the area around Eden, and the Walgal and Ngarigo people in the Kosciuszko region. Editor's Note: The 240km Coast to Kosciuszko took place in southern New South Wales - starting in Eden and finishing at Mt Kosciuszko.
0 kommentar(er)
