West Macs Monster: Running the Larapinta Trail — Meghann Bullen

By Meghann Bullen (nee Coffey) — West Macs Monster, Sonder Monster, The Larapinta Trail, May 2023

A year earlier I watched a friend race West Mac Monster Sonder Monster. Following along the tracker, the landscape looked amazing. A 231km point-to-point race in the middle of Australia with ~6,000m elevation. I couldn’t wait to race it.

In the lead up to the event, my training included plenty of volume, plenty of climbing, heat acclimatisation training (hot baths!) and hours of watching videos of the Larapinta Trail. All the videos, photos and descriptions don’t do the trail justice. I thought I was ready — but nothing could have prepared me for the rugged and isolating Larapinta Trail. It felt like you were constantly in a standstill admiring the brutal and beautiful landscape.

For the race in May 2023, my husband, sister, two friends, mum and brother-in-law joined me in Alice Springs to crew and pace. The then-current female FKT was 54 hours and 21 minutes, held by Lucy Bartholomew, and the female course record was 56 hours and 52 minutes, held by Elizabeth Woodgate. I was hoping to go under 54 hours, but I had no idea what was possible.

Friday morning race start, standing on the start line, I had butterflies in my belly and my mind was turning to mush. I tried to keep focus: “eat and take it slow Meg, you’ve got a long way to go.”

The summit of Mt Sonder was ~7km of climbing, covering ~750m elevation. This year was the first year the race organisers allowed crew to join their runner up and down Mt Sonder. We started and quickly broke up into little groups, everyone finding their own stride. It was so nice to share the first little bit of the race with my husband and two friends who would later be pacing me — not only for the company but to give them an idea of the trail. As we ascended, my husband kept reminding me to take it easy as he could see I was already trying to catch the female up ahead.

Having company for that first 16km was special. As we hit the bottom, I left them and was on my own for the next 100km or so.

To make the task seem somewhat possible, I decided to break the race into quarters. Each quarter equated to a 12-hour period. Day one was quarter one, night one was quarter two, and so on. My four quarters would finish at 9am — the 48-hour mark — and then I’d be running into overtime hoping the adrenaline would get me to the finish.

I had covered the distance 18 months earlier at the Delirious West 200 Miler, but with a race this long there are so many unknowns, and I knew I’d have to focus on one quarter at a time.

Into the first day, the trail flowed and I mainly ran solo. The first 30km I was back and forth with another female and male runner, who after I decided to push the pace, I didn’t see again. The trail mainly ran through grass flats with wet and dry creek crossings. There were some smaller climbs and fun switchbacks. The body and mind were feeling good, so I took advantage of it while I could.

The first crewed checkpoint was at 50km and I was around my estimated time. Everyone was excited. There’s so much excitement, energy and nervousness at checkpoints. I didn’t want to sit and hang around long this early in the race. We did a quick refill of water, coke, lollies and gels. After a reapply of sunscreen and chafe cream, I headed out. The next time I’d see the team wouldn’t be till after dark.

Towards the end of the first day, the sky turned a deep fiery red. I could hear the dingoes singing to one another from ridge lines, and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of being completely isolated. I’ve run plenty of races, running solo through day and night, but never have I felt so totally alone. There was not a spot of human trace out to the horizon. It was peaceful — but don’t get me wrong, there was a huge sense of edginess hearing dingoes howl knowing I was about to lose light and go into the darkness without a moon to light the trail.

I dropped into a gorge with large boulders, finding it hard to keep an eye on trail markers. With a few forwards and backs trying to figure out the way, I made it out and reconnected with the crew at the next checkpoint. At this point I was getting a tonne of blisters, so we did a shoe change a lot earlier than planned.

I headed out again, solo into the darkness. I found my groove and followed the flowy single trail up onto another ridge line. I took a moment at the top to turn off my headlight, pause, and take in the breathtaking stars. It felt like they lit the way. Everything seemed to be going right.

I reached Ellery Creek (103km) at 1:50am. The last 14km were frustrating — I’d had to backtrack to re-find the trail multiple times. The trail was a scramble. I was on hands and knees to climb up large rocky inclines and a lot of the trail markers seemed hidden or missing. I came running into the checkpoint with relief.

My husband was standing there, just emerging from his sleeping bag. My frustration was let out on him. I knew the change in my mood meant I needed a quick nap before moving through the rest of the night. It’s amazing the superpowers of a nap — even just 12 minutes. On waking, I returned to my cheery self.

Myself and my pacer Stef stepped off, knowing we wouldn’t see our crew again for the next 16 hours. A few hours after stepping off, we hit a large river crossing and couldn’t see the marker on the other side. We pulled out our maps and realised we had missed a critical turn and had come almost full circle back to the checkpoint. We were still following the Larapinta Trail — just no longer going the right direction.

My heart sank knowing we had lost around an hour and a lot of energy only to get back to where we had come from, and the negative thoughts began flooding in. Stef could see I was frustrated. After allowing me to sulk, she gave me a metaphoric slap in the face, told me to put my big girls pants on and get on with it.

The sun began to rise. We had entered the third quarter.

Mid-morning came and we were in the depths of Hugh Gorge. The gorge walls were dark red skyscrapers, large fallen trees covered the riverbed, and the sand was littered with dingo footprints. We knew there was a large swimming hole coming up, which meant we had to either climb along the vertical gorge wall or swim. We had decided pre-race to swim — to save an accidental fall into the water. We had reef shoes packed and ready.

As we reached the swimming hole, we swapped shoes, put our electronics in a waterproof bag and walked in knee-deep. Stef went first. She stripped to her bra and undies, handed me her things, and swam around to climb up on a boulder. I threw everything across and jumped in. The water took my breath away and immediately I could no longer feel anything except intense pins and needles through my body.

As I clung onto the boulder trying to climb out with tired arms, we had a realisation of how funny we must look — and that it no longer felt like a race, but one of our many Sunday adventures. We sat in the sun slowly getting dressed, appreciating the unique and beautiful outback we found ourselves in.

The rest of the day, we passed a handful of hikers, climbed more ridge lines, scrambled down what felt like vertical rock faces and navigated through large sandy gorges. Fatigue was catching up, but Stef kept me in a good mood with her prepared jokes.

We reached Standley Chasm (160km) at 5:30pm at the end of the third quarter, just as I had hoped. Although exhausted and sore, I couldn’t hide my ear-to-ear smile running into the checkpoint. I changed my clothes (well overdue), had a few mouthfuls of pasta, sipped on coke, and felt ready to roll.

While loosening my shoelaces to put my already swollen and blistered feet back in my shoes, I told my husband how I had a feeling the finish line wasn’t getting closer. It seemed the further I ran, the further the finish felt. He reassured me in his frustratingly rational way: “Stay with Geri, she’ll get you to the end.”

I said goodbye to my crew in my broken, croaky voice and headed out. Within 500m, my pole gave way and I almost toppled with it. Luckily I had a spare set with the crew, and we quickly darted back to swap over. We were off again.

As I ran along the winding trail my mind became clear and I felt completely in the moment — the discomfort and doubt had vanished. Sadly, that didn’t last long as we entered the high route out of Miller’s Flat. After what felt like hours of scrambling vertically and being hit with freezing cold gusty winds, we thought we’d reached the top only to realise it was another false summit.

“What am I doing,” I’d yell to myself as I fought to keep my eyes open.

“Put your gloves on,” Geri responded. We were only 10 metres apart but with hoods up and cyclone-like winds it was impossible to hear one another. We continued trudging upwards.

We eventually made it down off the ridge line. I became excited knowing we were getting close. If we kept our pace, we’d finish close to 48 hours. I told Geri and she immediately put her foot down and vanished — her way of telling me to get moving.

We hit a few checkpoints through the night, refuelling with hot noodles or soup, lollies, and conversations with the volunteers. The moment I stopped running, the cold night air made me shiver uncontrollably. At one checkpoint we stopped for another quick nap. I had reached just over 200km and had been running over 40 hours with only 12 minutes of sleep. Geri set her timer for 15 minutes and I quickly fell asleep in a swag set up for runners. 15 minutes never sounds very long but it’s actually all you feel like you need. I remember having the most vivid dreams.

We charged into Simpsons Gap (206km at 3:30am) 2.5 hours earlier than planned — so early our crew hadn’t arrived yet. We let them know we were safe and kept moving. The checkpoint ladies seemed surprised at our cheeriness. We knew we were so close to the finish and we were both getting excited.

The temperature seemed to drop again and I really started to struggle. I focused on moving my poles quickly to get into a rhythm to pick my feet up to run. It worked — enough.

We passed another checkpoint. I told Geri I didn’t want to stop and risk getting cold again. We were roughly 10km to go, and the sun was about to rise. We found ourselves descending off Euro Ridge watching as the sun turned the sky into a deep purple with sparkles of the last stars fading. We could see Alice Springs slowly waking up as we were charging towards it.

After 46 hours on the track I would lift my head for a few seconds before returning to watch my feet on the rocky loose trail. Geri thankfully stopped and took plenty of photos. Looking back at these after the race, I wondered how I didn’t remember the breathtaking views.

We met my crew at the final checkpoint. 5km to go. The race allows anyone to finish the last 5km with their runner, so Stef, my sister and husband joined Geri and I for the final stretch. I was running as quickly as I could — but it wasn’t much faster than a power walk. We shared lots of stories and I focused on not getting lost. Being so close, I didn’t want to run an extra 500m if I didn’t have to.

We knew we would be coming in under 48 hours as long as I kept moving.