Last on Course: How I Won My Worst Ever 100km

There’s a quiet truth I’ve been circling for years now: I don’t do these things in spite of the suffering… I do them because of it.

Not the Instagram version. Not the sunrise-on-a-ridge, arms-outstretched, life-is-beautiful #blessed kind of suffering. I mean the ugly stuff. The slow, grinding, question-everything, strip-yourself-bare kind of suffering.

Years of searching for my own black hole of suffering.

And in October 2025 at the Blackall 100, I finally found it.

I’d set the whole thing up perfectly - if your goal was to fail.

2025 was a write-off for running. Almost zero training. Then, in a moment of what can only be described as deeply questionable judgment, I decided to run the Rainbow Beach Marathon… followed by the Sunshine Coast Marathon the next day. Sand, trails, hills, road crowds, heat - two days that absolutely dismantled me. By the end of it, I wasn’t running, I was negotiating with my body just to keep moving forward.

I remember thinking afterward: You’ve got no business lining up for a 100km in October.

But that’s the thing. Somewhere along the line, I stopped asking, “Can I do this?” and started asking, “What happens if I try anyway?”

The race started fine. Not great, not terrible. The first 15km felt almost… normal. Rhythm came, legs turned over, and for a brief moment I thought maybe I’d gotten away with it.

Then the cramping started.

Quads, calves. Early. Unusual. Unwelcome.

By 20km I was already in damage control - electrolytes, food, trying to stay ahead of something that was clearly gathering momentum. The heat crept in next. Not aggressive, just persistent. Like a slow tightening of the screws.

By 42km, I was in it.

That stretch brought back memories of the year before - helping Baylin through the same section on his 18th birthday, both of us overheating, dragging ourselves toward the Bluff under a punishing sun. This time it was just me, same hill, same heat… but a very different conversation in my head.

There’s a concept in psychology called “ego depletion” - the idea that willpower is a finite resource. That the more you draw on it, the less you have.

I’m not sure I buy that anymore.

Because somewhere between 42km and 70km, I wasn’t running on willpower. I was running on something else. Something quieter. Narrower.

Call it attentional narrowing - where the brain, under extreme stress, strips everything back to the absolute essentials. No past, no future. Just the next section, hill, step. Then the next.

It’s not heroic. It’s mechanical.

And it’s strangely addictive.

At around 70km, in the dark, I took a wrong turn.

No drama at first. Just a feeling. Something slightly off. Then the realisation. Then the slow, sinking confirmation.

Three kilometres. Gone.

And not flat, friendly kilometres either. Hills. Technical. The kind that take more than they give.

I remember stopping. Hands on knees. Looking into the black valley ahead.

What are you doing out here?

It wasn’t rhetorical. It was a genuine question.

Who are you, really? What are you made of?

Because it’s easy to talk a big game when things are going well. Anyone can be resilient at 15km. But this - this was different.

This was the moment where you either quietly step off… or you find out something you can’t unknow.

There’s another idea - “grit,” popularised by psychologist Angela Duckworth. Passion and perseverance over long periods.

But grit sounds clean. Polished.

What I felt out there wasn’t polished. It was messy. Doubtful. At times, almost pathetic.

I wasn’t charging. I was shuffling.

I wasn’t confident. I was questioning everything.

But I kept moving.

And sometimes that’s the whole game.

By the time I was heading toward the final checkpoint at 92km, I knew I was close to the cut-off.

Then I heard voices behind me.

Cheery. Light. Completely out of place.

I turned, half expecting fresh runners. But no - it was the sweepers.

That’s when it hit me.

I’m last.

Out of everyone who started, I was the one bringing up the rear. The final dot on the map. The guy everyone assumes won’t make it.

I’ll be honest - there was a flicker of embarrassment there. A moment of ego.

Then something else replaced it.

Relief.

Because now it was simple.

Yes, I was last. And I was also the first "non-quitter".

Both can be true.

There was no one left to compare against. No pacing games. No positioning.

Just one question: Are you finishing this or not?

My watch died soon after.

Then my headlamp.

It felt symbolic. Like even my gear had decided I’d been out there long enough.

I rolled into the 92km checkpoint. Sweepers shining their light on the path for me. They were packing up. The race director looked at me, asked what the plan was.

I was annoyed. Not at him - just at the question.

He knew me. Knows what I've done.

Then the other event Director told me I could jump in his car. He knew me too. However he'd probably seen this look in hundreds of runners. And he'd never seen me in this state.

They'd both seen me struggle along the sand on Rainbow Beach. Maybe they thought this was it. This time he was done.

It wasn’t time.

I did the maths. Eight kilometres left. Tight cut-off. Terrain that doesn’t forgive. I'd have to go almost twice as fast as I'd been going the last 3hrs.

On paper, it didn’t stack up.

But this wasn’t about paper.

There’s a theory called “self-efficacy” from psychologist Albert Bandura - the belief in your own ability to execute actions required to manage situations.

It’s built through experience. Through small wins. Through surviving things you weren’t sure you could.

Out there, in that moment, I wasn’t drawing confidence from this race.

I was drawing it from every cold solo ocean swim, every lonely bush run, every time I’d gone looking for that black hole and found my way out.

So I filled my water, listened to the pre-dawn kookaburras laughing like they knew something I didn’t… and got moving.

I felt like I was flying.

I wasn’t, of course. To anyone watching, it would’ve looked like a stiff, awkward shuffle. But internally? I was electric.

Purpose does that.

Dawn broke as I came out of the bush. Farms. Quiet roads. A softness returning to the world that I hadn’t noticed disappearing.

No watch. No time. Just instinct and memory of the course.

At the 2km to go sign, I passed another runner. He was walking. I couldn’t even speak. My world had shrunk to calculations and forward motion.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

The last 600 metres felt like a sprint.

Not physically - but emotionally.

There were people at the finish. More than I expected. Finished runners who’d slept, woken up, and come back to see who might crawl in under the cut-off.

They were yelling.

Clapping.

And I felt two things at once: relief… and a strange kind of embarrassment.

Last on course.

But not out.

I crossed with about 15 minutes to spare.

15 minutes, 24hr cut off.

After everything - the lack of training, the heat, the cramps, the wrong turn, the dead gear - I’d threaded the needle.

Then, with about 6 minutes to spare, the other runner came in.

Which meant I wasn’t last anymore.

But here’s the thing…

I kind of liked being last.

Because last forces a question most of us spend our lives avoiding:

When it gets really hard - when no one’s watching, when there’s an easy out, when you’ve got every excuse lined up - who are you?

We live in a country where, for the most part, life is good. Safe. Predictable. Comfortable.

And that’s something to be grateful for.

But comfort has a shadow side.

It dulls the edges. Softens the mind. Makes it easy to never really find out what you’re capable of.

That’s why I go looking for these moments.

Not because I enjoy the pain - but because I’m curious about what’s on the other side of it.

Baylin flew through the 50km that day. Strong, smooth, in control.

And I was out the back, falling apart.

Two very different races.

But both valuable.

Because whether you’re flying… or barely holding it together… the question is the same:

Who are you when it gets hard?

I was last on course.

But I didn’t quit.

And these days, that feels like a win worth more than any time on the clock.