Cathy's Debut 100km Run at 58yrs old

Debut Ultra 100km Run

by Cathy Rowney 4th August 2021 

The idea of running a 100km in one go came to me after running 80km last October where I raised funds for ovarian cancer. I work as a specialist nurse in Gynaecology / Oncology in clinics and ward settings at the Royal Hospital for Women Randwick.  I have worked here for close to 17 years and have a passion for women’s health. My extra motivation to run the 80km last year also stemmed from my beautiful mother in law Veronica Rowney who had been undergoing treatment for stage 4 ovarian cancer throughout last year.

Mother in law veronica with Cathy rowney

I had two big motivators to attempt a 100km in 2021. I am a breast cancer survivor and this year is my 10 year survival year and what a challenge this would be to kick cancers butt. Then there was the 1000 miles to light for reach out organised by Pat Farmer with my coach Greta Truscott with two others to make the Aussie team and run against a team from the USA. They were running for Reach out who are there for youths struggling with mental health. Also Pat Farmer was raising awareness for a dear running friend who lost his battle to depression last year. He was a friend of mine too and always supported me in my running and swimming adventures. I decided to do a fund raiser with Beyond Blue for Steven Garamy our dearly departed friend, and raised over $3,000. I was hoping to run the 100km whilst they were running but mixed up my dates and took time off the wrong week at work . So my date was then scheduled for 4th August. {Cathy incredibly backed up with a 1000 Miles to Light virtual marathon 42.2km (with ~2,700 other virtual runners via Running Heroes) on August 14th Day 1 of the event and donated generously to the cause. Cathy you are amazing and so very much appreciated in every way].

steven garamy far right next to coach greta & Jaden at Pat farmers 2019 quicksand maroubra where we ran marathon relays on the sand

cathy ran a marathon virtually with 1000 miles to light & donated to reach out after doing her 100km!! huge huge kudos & thanks cathy

Unfortunately Veronicas cancer came back with a vengeance early July this year and she sadly passed away 28th July. Her funeral was scheduled for 6th August. It meant I could just put the 100km on the backburner or just have a go.  I had trained so hard for much of this year with loads of long runs and back up long distances on consecutive days. I decided to go ahead on the 4th August starting at 4.30am. 

Cathy and her biggest supporter janine Tenille

I created a Whats App group and had massive support from the Rejoov runners , Gilbert from Striders, family and friends.  Started from home with Fran Boorer around Botany then headed off towards Janine Tenille (my biggest supporter) in Alexandria. Felt fabulous and Janine stayed with me till I reached 20kms. Had plenty of music to chill along with till I met Lisa Sherman just pass Kyeemagh. Lisa stayed with me till the 44km mark after out and back to Taren Point Bridge . Had some time on my own till the 55km mark at Ramsgate where the lovely Emma Trehy and Penny Johnston joined me, playing tag as to keep just two runners together due to covid restrictions. They left me at 60km at Kyeemagh  A change of socks undies a freshen up , Panadol and magnesium cream on the legs and glutes and some food prepared me so much better for the final 40km (great tip from Nayda Caminer) 

Nutritionist lisa sherman and cathy

Plenty of good music (Stevie Nicks live) kept me going till I headed back towards Mascot, saw my Mum and Sis at the 70km mark. Ran into Fran again at Wentworth Ave with her daughter Bronte at the 75km mark. Was feeling really good, I just kept moving along and enjoying all the messages coming through on Whats App. Hit Malabar to a support crew, Greta, Susan, Edel, Kat with her beautiful pooches Bruce and Kevin holding up a sign with Go Cathy (so sweet). Caught Chris Truscott Malabar beach and hit the 80km. Was a whole new challenge now. Furthest I’ve ever ran. 

cathy’s cheer squad at malabar

cathy and coaches chris and greta

Susan kept me company till we met with Andrea Maroubra Junction followed by Bea, Michelle and Debbie Neville. Andrea continued till Kingsford just before 90km mark and the other lovely ladies stayed with me till the finish. It was getting darker now and the girls kept me upbeat. I ran walked ,then ran some more till we got to the 99km mark near my home in Banksmeadow. The going was tough after 95km but I pushed and knew I could do this even if I crawled the rest of the way. With 1km to go picked up the pace and ran it home. Thanks to these gorgeous girls and so many support messages I completed my first 100Km. 

support crew beatriz michelle debbie

cathy’s sprint finish

Cant thank everyone enough for helping me achieve this goal Greta my awesome coach  and her awesome hubby Chris who gave me great advice to keep that fuel going from the start, made a huge difference, never felt weak dizzy or nauseated like the 80km. Rejoov buddies, family and friends. My strength drawn from Veronica who I felt was with me the whole way keeping me going. Love you all. Thankyou with all my heart 

Cathy Rowney 

congratulations super woman cathy, on your outstanding achievement for life and love. we love you

Ultra Trail Aus 2021 by Freya

UTA50 2021

by rejoover Freya Riddel

I am not sure I am the best person to do a write-up of this event. I bought a ticket on resale whilst in a winery in the McLaren Vale a couple of months earlier, and I approached race day with a naiveite bordering on wilful ignorance.

About 3 weeks before the event, friends of mine (and more seasoned trail runners) invited me to the Blue Mountains for a reconnaissance run. The night before this run, I had a cheeseboard for dinner washed down with generous amounts of red wine. This was a bold move from someone who is begrudgingly, but almost definitely, lactose intolerant. Alas, I was ready to be picked up on sunny Sunday morning in Bondi – dressed in my shorts and t-shirt and wearing a rucksack picked up as an afterthought so that I looked the part. That day was not a huge success for me – I had not anticipated a temperature difference between Bondi and Katoomba, I tripped and fell quite spectacularly on more than one occasion, and the cheese wreaked havoc with my guts. The backdrop to all this haplessness was, however, beautiful.

Fast-forward to the UTA race day – I have all the gear, and still very little idea. I have packed (on advice) 2 gels for every hour I expected to be on the course (I had anticipated 8, if I were to treat it as a hike), salt tablets, a couple of cliff bars, and some rogue potatoes – none of which I had tried on a training run before.

Freya smashed her debut in 15th place, congrats!!

In the end, I relied mainly on the electrolyte re-fills at the checkpoints, I ate 3 of my gels (thank god, I packed 16), and nil potatoes. I did enjoy the salt tablets. It was nice to have something firm I could hold in my mouth. Had I known that salt tablets notoriously cause stomach issues for a lot of people, I would never have dared risk them.

I was euphoric for the whole race, only interrupted with waves of emotion. I welled up at the start line when they announced at the start line that “This is your day, you’ve been building up to this. This is what you’ve been waiting for” I was entitled to none of the credit, but I was nevertheless quite affected by it. The atmosphere was palpably thick with the significance of the day; so many runners lined up would have shown commitment, discipline, and likely sacrifice, to be there, all of them driven by their own motivations. It was inspiring. The running itself was just the medium to manifest a rich tapestry of life.

My race plan was to scamper until the inevitable wall hit (I have never run further than a half marathon) and walking/ staggering to the end when it did. My overriding objective was for this to be an enjoyable day out, rather than a tribulation.

Stunning views and music along the way

That wall never hit. This does not make sense to me. I can only theorise that a week of cycling two weeks before had some positive impact on my strength and fitness, and that my naiveite helped – I had no expectations, so I had no standard to meet or reference with which to measure my performance This removed self-doubt and any negative internal dialogue – I could not perform badly when I did not know what a ‘successful’ performance would look like.

There is also less pressure in a trail run - there are so many more variables on trails which reduces the emphasis on the individual. The environment and runner are mutually important components of the event. People’s responses to, or experiences of, the natural variables are unpredictable on race day: and as such, your performance is harder to measure by reference to others. A tacit acceptance of this is perhaps why runners are so supportive: whenever I overtook someone, I was unfailingly cheered with a “well done!”, “looking strong”. As someone who responds well to positive reinforcement –this is also likely to have had a part to play in my performance.

The setting of the course was spectacular – another contributor to my euphoria and waves of emotion and, perhaps, inadvertent dissociation. I felt privileged to scurry and scramble through the Blue Mountains, to acknowledge the ancient and continuous connection to the land held by the traditional owners, and to share genuine moments of joy with volunteers and fellow runners. I was also just so thrilled that my bowels held it together.

I am now very much a trail enthusiast and am in the market for future events – mainly for the profound reasons I mention above, but also because I am now financially invested in all the gear.

UTA start line - so thankful this race got to go ahead this year :)

Chris Dwyer - 80 marathons

CHRIS DWYER (Rejoover & Syd Strider - long time runner & long time friend)

(sub note - Chris & Greta have known Chris Dwyer aka Super Star for many many years and we hope he doesn’t mind us saying he is turning 70yrs this year - a mega happy birthday Supe!) 

80 MARATHONS,  OF WHICH OVER 50 ARE SUB 3 HOURS

P.B.    2:38:30

“My father introduced me to sailing at the age of 12.  This was to become my passion for the next 21 years.

From the age of 18 I sailed a single person boat and was fortunate to represent NSW at the Australian Titles. You first have to be selected for NSW to compete at the Australian Championships and selection trials were held in the last week in October.  9 seniors who were 18+ years and 3 juniors under 18 were selected. I managed to see all capital cities in Australia except Darwin, as each city got to host every 6 years.

Morton Bay in Brisbane got the opportunity to host the world Titles in January 1976.  I made it my mission from the 1st December 1974 to try to make these World Titles.  Not only did you have to make sure you had a fast boat, you had to be very fit and muscular to compete at a high level, so for 12 months there was a lot of running, strength training, pumping iron 3 times a week.  I also had a wooden frame which trained the precise muscles for core strength, quads and stomach muscles.  I did 1500 – 2000 sit-ups on 5 out of 7 days a week.  I made the team and this was the highlight of my sailing career.

At the age of 29, the design of the boat was undergoing radical design changes.  A lot of my close sailing friends moved on to another class of boat.  I stayed on for one more year, but with a young family, running my own business plus having to keep the boat tuned, it was becoming a struggle to get the time to compete at the standard I would have liked.  I started to sail a 2 person boat but my heart was not in it.

I retired from sailing at the age of 33 and have not gone back.  My time was up.  So what next?

I had already run two marathons, the Harbord Diggers at Manly to Mona Vale

return 3 hours 12 minutes and Holsworthy Army Base 3 hours 25 seconds.  Bugger!!  So if I was going to run another marathon it was going to be a sub 3hr, so I had a few runs with Sydney Striders. 

The first step was to join.  I did this in 1983.  Next I had to drop weight.  I was 74kg’s when I retired from sailing.  My third marathon was Canberra, the first of 12 in Canberra.  I weighed in at 61kg’s and did 2 hours 51 minutes.

Years went on.  Some years I would do 4 marathons per year. In 1993-94 I met Peter Truscott, only on a very casual basis as Peter ran at 6:20am, I was 6:30am.  Yes, Striders did have a 6:30am group then.  I think it was in 1995 Chris Truscott joined Striders and there were a lot of colourful adjectives and nouns exchanged between us, but it wasn’t long before Chris, with his youth and quality on his side left me in his wake.  But a friendship had been formed.  We started training, touring and partying together.  Until I met the Truscotts I didn’t  know red wine existed, but I do now.

Chris, Peter and another friend Andrew Gibbons and I did the Berlin Marathon in 2001, in which Chris recorded his PB 2 hours 28 mins.  So that night we celebrated at Octoberfest.  What a night!  We had such a great time we went back the next year.

I have seen most of the world by running marathons. I have I think been able to have success at this distance because of the Striders 6:30am group which was tough.  My favourite workout when in serious training for a marathon was every second Wednesday 24k in no more than 100 minutes.  

So I kept on running with Peter and Chris and in 2003 was introduced to Greta while helping out at the 6ft Track.  It was easy to tell by his happy face that Chris has found his princess.

I have had many great memories of people I have met running marathons and of places all over the world.  A couple of sad memories too. 

Sad Moments

1.    I am not trying to be ostentatious but this is what happened.  I had my office in Redfern in the 80’s and was a member also of City Tatts where we had a lunchtime running group.  Most runs were around the Botanical Gardens.  We would do some Opera House steps then hammer home around the water and all meet back at Hyde Park.  There were about 15 runners and most ran at their own pace but 5 of us were in a lead pack.  After about 3 km this was down to myself and another person who was a good friend.  The pace was hard but manageable for me but my friend was blowing. I said “you’ve gotta slow down” but he didn’t.  After another 500 metres I said “you’ve gotta stop or you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”  He slowed, I kept going and waited at Hyde Park.  No-one showed up.  I thought I had gotten the instructions wrong, but no, he did have a heart attack and went to Heaven 3 days later.  We found out later he was diagnosed with 85% blocked arteries.

2.    I had a friend by the name of John Sauer.  He was more of a 5k and 10k runner with a PB high 32 mins.  We often did hard 10k runs at Parramatta Park where I did most of my running.  John would only do 1k warm-ups then straight into 3 laps which was 10k’s, always on the road, while I would do 85% on dirt.  Often I would say “John, you can’t  keep running so much on the road, your knees will go,” and they did.  He required surgery then spent some time in the wilderness.  John liked to have a few beers and while he was not running put on weight.  My last session with John was supposed to be 10 x 600 metres with 100 metre float. The first 3 were smash, smash and smash.  Number 4 saw John peeling off at 300 metres, number 5 and John pulled up at 200 metres, his knee gone.  That was the last time I trained with John and there were no more races for John.  He had just started to run and walk until one Sunday night he had a massive heart attack and went to Heaven 6 hours later.  It took a long while to get accustomed to the fact I would never see John again while training at Parramatta Park.

Great Moments

1.    My first of 15 Berlin Marathons was in 1989, the re-unification marathon.  It was my first big city marathon.  The atmosphere was electric with spectators along all the 42k’s.

2.    My second highlight was my first Venice Marathon.  I was, I think, in the best possible race condition and looking maybe for a PB but this all changed 10 mins before the start when a fierce storm front came through with torrential rains and 70k winds.  I knew there were some canal bridges to run over but 13 was a surprise.  Running over the pontoon on the Grand Canal took my breath away.  I was standing in a queue when I was pulled out by race officials and informed my 2hrs 41 mins had won the UNICEF Award being the First Runner Over 40 Male that was not Italian.

3.    The 2003 Berlin Marathon with Chris and Peter Truscott and Andrew Gibbons was a great holiday and Chris and Andrew had PB’s on the day.  We went to Octoberfest the same night.  Wow, what a time.

So now at my age if I wake up with a pulse it’s a good day and when I come to C.P. and survive Rejoov boss’ instructions it’s a great day.

Thank You

Chris Dwyer”