YORKTON - There are efforts in sport which simply leaves one in awe.
Canadian Shanda Hill recently did that albeit in a largely unknown moment in sport but that made it no less amazing.
It only took Hill 279 hours and 30 minutes to cross the finish line, but to have even started the race she was in was a Herculean decision.
Hill was competing in the Â鶹´«Ã½AV Africa Deca Ultra Triathlon, becoming the first and only woman to complete the race.
So for those not sure what a Ultra Triathlon is – most readers one suspects – it is a race one would only expect existed in the old stories of Greek or Roman heroes on a quest for one of the old gods.
In this Ultra Triathlon Hill took on over 38 kilometres of swimming, 1,800 kilometres of cycling, and 422 kilometres of running.
“I do it because I can,” Hill told Yorkton This Week in a recent interview.
Now Hill didn’t win the race, not that seems nearly as important as the effort itself – and by being the first woman to take on the challenge she has set the mark for future women taking on the gruelling race.
One might ask simply ‘why’ take on such a huge challenge?
In Hill’s case it might be in her genes to challenge herself through sport.
“I grew up in BMX racing,” she said, looking back on time she was taking on a bicycle sport most would see as challenging itself.
A car accident in 2003 ended the BMX racing, but not Hill’s desires to be in sport.
In 2010 she started running.
“It was something I could do,” she said, and that inspired her because there was much she couldn’t do as she desired too.
In time a bud who was involved in triathlon who suggested it might be something Hill should try.
Hill took the new challenge and admits she found herself hooked.
Then someone asked “have you ever heard of a double (double a normal triathlon)?” said Hill.
There was one on the horizon at the time in Oregon, and she again took the challenge.
From there, as things sometimes do, things sort of snowballed.
“A triple was being held in Virginia,” she said.
From there Hill found herself in the ‘triathlon’ community, people of a like-mind, only too willing to point to the next ‘higher mountain’ of the sport to ascend.
“These people kept telling me about something else,” said Hill, adding “. . . the people are incredible.”
Hill said that one of the challenges of ultra races is that “. . . no two races have ever been the same.”
Hill said she is now less about being on the podium at the end, and more about educating herself about herself.
“Now I just go back to learn if I can,” she said.
In that regard there might be another longer race to face, but she said she still learns about her own body with every race, how to better train, how to deal with the aches and pains and injuries in race, how to best ensure a speedy recovery.
And there is that competitive edge too.
“I want to become faster,” she admitted.
That means training, although Hill has her own ideas there too, as one might expect from an athlete in a sport few gravitate too.
“I don’t have the mentality that more is better,” she said, adding she doesn’t pile up miles in training. In fact in front of the big race she said “I only did about 200 kilometres on the bike.”
Too much of anything can put stresses on points in the body, and Hill wants to avoid that.
“I don’t want to do permanent damage to my body,” she said.
Instead Hill said she focuses on variety – “staying strong by cross training.”
Along the way in the sport, Hill said she hopes to spread the word that it even exists.
“That was one of my jobs when I started . . . That people learn abut the sport,” she said, adding they “don’t have to do it: but it can be for some.
“It was a good fit for me,” she said.
