A Cairns endurance athlete’s extreme 17-hour running effort was so gruelling she was rushed to the emergency department twice after collapsing over the finish line at the Tablelands event.
Self-confessed adrenalin junkie Peta Travers-Jones battled a head cold and the heat and humidity to run an extraordinary 113.9km in 17 hours, winning first place in the women’s competition of her first Old Mate’s Backyard Ultra endurance event in Atherton on October 29 and 30.
Peta, a 28-year-old zookeeper who works with wild animals at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures, has spoken of the physical and mental extremes that took her from elation to despair at the event.
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She was rushed to hospital in the aftermath as her body went into shock from the exertion, and had to return hours later when test results showed she potentially at risk of kidney damage.
At one point, her partner Ben Carroll was forced to scale the outside of a building and climb in through a window to assist Peta after she collapsed in a post-race shower, unable to control her body movements or breathing.
For Peta, 28, her experience was both a career highlight and a frightening reminder that pushing boundaries can have severe, and fatal, consequences.
“We do take our health very seriously, planning our nutrition and hydration needs, but it is an extreme event, especially here (in Far North Queensland) with the hot, humid weather,” Peta said.
“I’ve done plenty of ultras before and never had a health issue. We do our plans for hydration and nutrition, but, in hindsight, I factored in a lower level of hydration than was necessary because the day was more humid than I thought.”
Designed to measure competitors’ mental and physical endurance, backyard ultra events require participants to complete a 6.7km loop run on the hour every hour until each has gone as far as they can go.
Having collapsed across the line at 1am on the Sunday morning following 17 gruelling laps, Peta’s elation at being the last woman running soon turned to fear for her physical well-being.
What started as a tingling sensation in her nose and hands immediately after the event grew more concerning when Peta collapsed during a post-event shower, forcing Ben to go to extreme lengths to assist her.
Although helped by Ben and others to cool down, Peta soon showed additional signs of heat stress including vomiting and was taken to Atherton Hospital’s emergency department where she underwent six hours of tests and received three litres of fluid to rehydrate her exhausted body.
Finally returning home to Cairns for much-needed sleep, Peta was awakened soon after by a phone call from the hospital advising that her tests had shown an elevated level of Creatine kinase (CK), an enzyme often released by the body when significant muscle damage occurs.
Having slept for only four of the previous 40 hours, Peta ventured to Cairns Hospital for more tests, finally receiving the welcome news that her CK levels were trending down and that the risk of rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of skeletal muscle that can lead to kidney damage, had abated.
Incredibly, Peta’s experience has not dampened her enthusiasm for backyard ultras, serving instead to motivate her for more competition.
“I learned a valuable lesson for future competition about how to cope with such situations, how I got through the event and where my preparations need to improve,” Peta said.
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“I never thought I was capable of (17 laps) and seeing what I’ve been able to achieve, unwell, with things not going to plan, I will now set some pretty high goals for the next one.”
Peta has set her sights on the Dead Cow Gully backyard ultra in Nanango in April and plans to be back in action at Old Mate’s Farm in October next year.
Peta admitted to feeling consternation, and a small measure of embarrassment, at twice being hospitalised as the result of pushing her limits but added that the staff in both emergency departments had been supportive.
“I was the one not taking enough care of my hydration and now they are having to care for me - I didn’t want to waste their time,” she said.
"I’d planned well and was trying to be as safe as I could be, but I’m human and I made a mistake.
“I can’t speak highly enough of the hospital staff at Atherton and Cairns Base. They thought the event was crazy but at no point did they give me the feeling that ‘this is your fault, you put yourself in this situation.
“I am very grateful to everyone who helped me get through this experience.”
