In the late nineteenth century Italy, day-long “challenge” sports became popular. Participants aimed to cover as much distance as possible and prove themselves audax (“audacious”). The challenge of Audax is not in racing, but in pushing your own boundaries and experiencing great personal achievements.

The majority of randonneuring events are classified as “brevets des randonneurs”. In such events, riders follow a course through a series of predetermined checkpoints called controls. Riders are free to ride individually or in groups as they wish. Riders are expected to be fully self-sufficient between controls and must carry food, water, spare clothing and tools to meet their requirements.

 Here is my story.

Where do I even start

It’s hard to sit down and write this blog. Hard for a number of reasons.

First: I don’t even know where to start. How do I write about something so overwhelmingly big, and how do I even try to encapsulate all the emotions, stories, pain, and events that took place over this ride? And how do I do it without boring you to death with the little details that seemed so important at the time?

Second: It’s still hard to sit down.

How this ride came about and my reasons for doing it has been covered in an earlier blog, and at the end of that blog I was questioning whether or not I would even try and attempt Sydney-Melbourne. But like any good eventer, a month following the ride I got randonnesia: amnesia contracted after a randonneuring event that makes you forget how bad it really was. So onwards we went towards November, following the Marty/Jem training plan: ride your bike. All your bikes. All the time. Up all the hills. Stop when you fall off. Then get back on your bike and keep going. With advice like this what could possibly go wrong?

Day 1: The Off

Starting the ride under the Sydney harbour bridge at sunrise was a moment that I will always remember. Friends of ours who lived in Sydney dragged themselves out of bed at the pre-dawn hour to come and see me off, and as one of them is a photographer we got some spectacular shots from the start line. Strangely enough for someone that gets pretty bad pre-event anxiety I was feeling calm. Right up until I had to say goodbye to my husband Max. Then I was torn between hanging on to him for dear life, and getting on my bike and heading out. The final call was made, and me and the other four Woodend Velos were off.

After catching what felt like every red light out of Sydney and losing the larger Audax bunch right from the get go, we finally settled down into our groove. Prior to starting I had sat down and, with feedback from the Velos, made up ‘the spread sheet’ for the entire trip, including all the major controls where we needed to have our brevet stamped, as well as what I thought would be the minor stops in-between where we’d need to be self-sufficient with our water and food. Each day had four controls plus three minor stops in-between. I’d estimated how long it would take us to hit each point, roughly how long we’d want to stop at each, and our average speed between each. Based on these, I’d estimated how long each day we’d spend ON the bike, and how long we’d end up stopping. OCD? Yes. Without a doubt. But this is how we rolled, and we were all used to having a run-sheet… which would of course be thrown away by Day 2 (the timings at least. Those mid-way stops came in super handy the entire ride).

However once we hit the first checkpoint at Mittagong Rigs’ health started deteriorating badly. He had been very ill the week leading up to Sydney, and was making noises that no human should be making while on a bike (or off a bike for that matter). He decided that our pacing wasn’t working for him, so set out from the checkpoint ahead of us, hoping that slower pacing and shorter stops would allow him to make it through.

After Mittagong we hit a bit of a climb, which made us all regret quite a lot the food we had wolfed down at the first checkpoint. It did seem to be that most checkpoints came right before climbs, but then again with such a huge number of climbs along the route it would have been near impossible not to. Rounding the corner we peered into the darkness. Hold on, why had it gotten so dark… and boom, down came the rain! We actually had a quick discussion on whether or not we should find shelter and pull over, but decided instead to ride through, and within 20 minutes we passed the storm and headed onwards.

For most of us Day 1 went very well, no major drama’s, nothing really exciting to report. Sam had carried a bag of Haribo gummy bears that he pulled out around 9:00pm for a sneaky treat, then onwards into the night we went. I actually remember thinking how good I felt, how bang on each target we were, and that if things kept up like this it would be an awfully boring blog at the end. Be careful what you wish for…

Rolling into the final checkpoint at Canberra 40 minutes ahead of ‘schedule’ felt great, and set us all on a positive note for the first day. Getting a hot shower and into bed felt wonderful, until I tried to lie down. Then my body was wracked with coughing that would keep me up all night. And lucky Rishi and Claire (the other two women riders who were sharing a room with me) got to hear my body destroy itself all night. I send a text to Rishi that next morning thanking her for not putting a pillow over my head in my sleep.

Day 2: all the climbing

That morning at breakfast the ride organisers broke the news to all of us that there had been a fatality overnight. I think all of us took the news, put it into a small room in the back of our minds and tried to compartmentalise it. It might sound cold and uncaring, but trust me it was anything but that. We were all shocked and upset by the news, but it’s just we couldn’t deal with it at that point in time as the ride still was going on. I’m sure it’ll hit us all at different times later.

Heading out from Canberra on just an hour of sleep felt pretty spectacular, but as they say, no rest for the wicked. After hitting a servo early so we could get new batteries for our SPOT tracker (which was allowing family and friends around the world to watch our progress) we headed off through Canberra. This was a lovely start to the day weather wise, and as Sam had grown up here we got the ‘tour of Sam’s youth’ as we headed out.

Our first stop of the day was at Mike Hall’s memorial about 40km out of Canberra. Russell Noble (one of the many amazing volunteers) had set up a food and coffee stop at the side of the road by the ghost bike. I’m not sure if it was coincidence or fate, but I had connected with him on Instagram earlier and knew he had been making cinnamon scrolls just for this stop. I wasn’t quite at #savedbycinnamon stage of the ride yet, but it was a welcome treat! Jacques had brought ‘ribbons’ of bike tubes with him, and the four of us had one tied on our arm for the first part of this ride. Arriving at the checkpoint, we took our armbands off and placed them at the memorial. It was an incredibly emotional moment, and I will forever be grateful that we were able to be there. It made it doubly hard given the news of that morning, and it took me a little longer to compose myself before we could get back on the bikes.

After that was the 80km joy of the Monaro highway slog into Cooma. Not much to report here: a constant 2% gradient drag along a highway wasn’t the highlight of the ride. But the drivers were courteous and we didn’t have any issues, other than the sheer sh*t sandwich that was this section of road.

After Cooma we entered the Snowy Mountains, and started the ‘proper climbing’ section of Sydney to Melbourne. FINALLY! I was in a much happier place, average temperature was 25, which was a lot warmer than we had anticipated for this section, but it was better than rain and 6 degrees that we all had had in the back of our minds. Unfortunately this warmth also kicked off my issue with hot foot*.

*Hot-foot occurs on long rides, or rides undertaken on warm days. They’re most commonly experienced where the ride includes steep hills, which demand prolonged foot pressure. These rides compress the nerves between the heads of the foot’s five metatarsal bones. Hot foot can be really debilitating to the average cyclist. It is excruciatingly painful and can turn a long ride into a miserable experience.

Those who have read my blog from The Oppy earlier in the year know this is something I’ve faced before, and I’ve spent a lot of my training time adjusting cleat position, having another bike fit, changing shoes, upping my sock game, and pretty much everything else I had read up on how to stop this from happening. But once it gets hot and I’m climbing, it seems to be game over for me. Needless to say hitting the hills was amazing, but I spent a lot of the early climbing time just sitting out the back of the Velos so I could live in my own little world of pain.

Lucky for me a friend who lives in the area had been dot watching and decided to come out to ride with us (to offer moral support but, as per Audax rules, no other support could be given). Just as I started to slip into the darkness of my pain world, I looked up and Rachel and Darryl were there! A quick gulp, a deep breath… and I was back. They rode the next 50km beside us, chatting with the Velos, laughing as I managed to crush Darryl on any descent, and generally lifting our collective spirits. This section of the ride became my absolute favourite, and rolling into the checkpoint at Adaminaby I was in good spirits. And who can’t grin when you’re greeted by a giant trout?! Coke in hand, (and feet under a cold tap and then up a tree) we recovered from the heat and the climbing, and then rolled out for more joyous hills towards Wolgalhut, the second checkpoint of the day, and where we said goodbye to Rach and Darryl. The hut was just off the road, and we got to navigate some pretty gnarly gravel to get to the hut, but we made it and no one fell off (we did walk back down to the road afterwards, no sense tempting fate!).

Unfortunately Wolgalhut was where Rigs’ journey had to stop. He got up very early that morning and had made it to this point, and then waited for us to arrive so that he could discuss with Jacques what was going on. Dr de Groot confirmed what Rigs already knew: his journey was over. He made it an unbelievable 566km with a very nasty chest infection and needed to stop riding. So after downing some noodles (seriously how good are pot noodles on a ride?!), and saying our farewells, we headed off towards the highest point of our ride at 1500m: the Great Dividing Range.

Hitting the highest point meant afterwards there were some amazing descents, which meant I had a lot of bugs in my teeth from grinning so hard. But following this was the climb: the one climb that I had been concerned about. Not nervous per say, but let’s just say it stood out on the elevation map like a big looming monster. We hit Elliot Way Climb after 250km in the saddle and in the dark. It’s about 8km at 8%, a fairly steady climb that has a few eases and a few pinches, but is consistent the entire way up. I hit this climb with one goal: consistency. Counting my breaths, I committed to a sip of water every 100 counts, a gel at 700, and that I wouldn’t look at the Garmin until after that gel. The boys did their pacing, and I did mine, and at 700 I took the gel and kept rolling. The boys had done the same, but had pulled over to have their nutrition. With a quick hello I kept going, not wanting to break my rhythm. For those interested, it took 1200 breaths to reach the top 50 minutes later.

It had been an incredible day, and we rolled into the final checkpoint at around 1:30am. Another social media contact, Peter Makin, had reached out to a few of us earlier in the week with a “if you would like me to bring a beer up to Laurel Hill for you to have when you get there let me know what you would like and I will make every effort to get it for you ” message, so imagine my excitement to be able to “da da da da!!” present the Velos with beers at the end of the immense day that was Day 2! But no, the boys said no… they had made the ‘beer mistake’ last year and paid for it the next day, so unfortunately the beers went into the suitcase to take to Melbourne. Cue another night of body shaking coughs, but at least this time I had the room to myself so I made it out alive.

Day 3: Grit. And Tears. And GRIT.

This is where if you’ve been enjoying the general positivity of this blog you should stop reading. Or just skip Day 3 and head to Day 4 when we finished. Because this is where it all fell apart for me, and when I break, it isn’t pretty.

Day 3 actually started out amazing. I had gotten past ‘that climb’ I was worried about, the overall day had more descents than climbs, big huge sweeping descents of amazingness, and we were over half way. What could possibly go wrong?

After 50km of amazing descents we rolled into the first checkpoint at Jingellic. So far so good. Food, water, and off we went. But after that the road got flat. Flat, hot, and exposed. Temperatures started rising, and there was no reprieve… and I was done. There wasn’t any power left in the legs, and the constant rolling hills meant pressure on/off the feet lead to the most horrific case of hot foot I’ve ever felt. Combined with very little sleep, I lost it. Completely.

The boys pulled over on the side of the road, and off went my helmet, shoes, sunglasses… and I sobbed. Great huge heartbroken sobs. My body was wracked with pain, and I just could not fathom how on earth I was going to keep going with this debilitating agony. We were only 90 km into the day, and it was just going to get hotter. Any pressure on my feet felt like red-hot pokers were being stabbed into them, and the pain was blinding. So nothing to do but get back on the bike and ride. And live in my world of pain, trying to own it as best I could.

A few kms later and I was still in agony, trying to do whatever I can to get my mind off my feet, from driving the nails of my hands into my fingertips to biting the insides of my mouth to move the pain anywhere else but in my feet. I yelled out to Jacques (who had the elevation profile visible on his Garmin) to tell me what the profile looked like. He said it was much of the same… so I figured if I didn’t need to put any power climbs in or stand up, I didn’t need to use my entire pedal stroke. So I took my right foot out of my shoe, if only to get the pressure on a different part of my foot. Instant relief!! It felt so good a few kms later I took the other foot out too. I reckon I rode for over 50km without shoes on, which got interesting when we hit road works and I had to stand on the side of the road waiting for our turn to go, but I didn’t care. I rode into the second checkpoint at Lake Hume rather awkwardly, but at least I had figured out a way to keep moving.

After this checkpoint I decided if my feet were swelling maybe if I took the insoles out of my shoes it would give me more room, so out they went. Literally anything, ANYTHING, at this point to mentally make me feel like I was in control of my own body and able to cope with the demons lighting my feet with a blowtorch and then stabbing them. More sunscreen was applied, and off we rode towards Beechworth. A quick stop in Yackandandah at the pub to top up the bidons, say hi to friends of Brian’s, and get some cold drinks in us, and we started the climb to Beechworth with me pumping tunes to keep me distracted. Brian and I had already chatted on the way up and decided to make this a ‘hit and run’ checkpoint as we wanted to hit the descent towards Wangaratta in the light. So a quick pizza and coke, combined with an Instagram pic to say I had made it through the heat of the day and hadn’t given up, and off we went.

After a lovely descent, we hit the flats again, and with shoes on I was able to ride like the wind in a set of rolling turns that had us flying… until we missed the turnoff and had to hit the breaks and turn around. The speed never returned to the mid-30s pace we had been holding, which probably wasn’t a bad thing, but it sure felt good to actually be able to ride at pace for awhile. And the sunset that day was spectacular, and it just felt like twilight would last forever. Rolling into the servo at Wang we smashed some potato cakes and chocolate milk, and donning the sexy high vis gear, off into the night we went. It was 9:20pm, and we still had 90kms to ride. After more dark riding in flat roads we finally hit Greta PS at 10:45pm for burgers on the bbq, and another chance to get my feet up.

While the feet had settled down a little with the cooler air, that 50km of shoeless riding and not moving in the saddle came back to haunt me with some pretty awesome saddlesores. Rishi and Claire pulled into the Greta checkpoint and a quick chat at the toilets had us all confirming that it now ‘burned when I pee,’ not an ideal state at all. I did make me grateful that there were other women on the ride who I could talk to, as misery loves company. I’m also sure that the guys would a) really not want to talk about it and b) have no idea what I was on about. It was now only 53km to ride until Camp Nillahcootie, our final stop for the night, but that 53km would take us a staggering 3.5 hours more as we slogged our way towards the finish of Day 3.

Once more the darkness claimed me and I slipped into the cracks in my mind. Brian was a phenomenal support throughout the ride as he tried to get me to talk about my family, work, what I liked to do… anything to stop the descent into madness and sadness. There were moments that I just teared up quietly as we rode along, but he would not let me fall back behind Sam and Jacques and kept slowing them down so we would stay together. It was hard: even though the cooler air was helping, my feet were still in an immense amount of pain, and quite often would viciously remind me of that fact. I had reached a very low spot and it was all I could do to just keep the pedals turning over. After a few moments that felt like a lifetime, I took Brian’s advice to ‘just keep it together’ and managed to claw my way back to the surface. A little while later we hit Camp Nillahcootie. Time: 2:30am.

Food, hot shower (shared with quite a few insect friends), old kit away, new kit laid out… all the normal routine of finishing which by this point become habit. Rishi and Claire rolled in, and the three of us had a quick chat about how the day had gone, and compared sunburns and the epic tan lines we were sporting. I then laid down to sleep… and yet again coughed the second I was horizontal. This time I decided to just step outside the cabin until it had calmed down, trying hard not to keep the other two awake yet again. Third night in a row now with very little sleep was, well, not good at all. I apologised again to Rishi and Claire, and Rishi said she was too tired now to put a pillow over my head, so I was safe once again.

Day 4: bringing it home

At 7am the alarm went off and I shifted my feet out of bed. Instant pain. These babies were not going to be good today. The nerves were screaming in agony just trying to walk to breakfast, so I put my brave face on and hobbled over to get a coffee and some breakfast.

Hitting the road just after 8am, Sam yelled out that every km we rode was one km towards the finish line. ONE! I screamed out. TWO!! … THR (that’s enough Tiffo, let’s ride). A few minutes later we saw a sign: Yea in 74km, and Melbourne in 180km. It’s on the sign!!! It was an exciting moment, and off we rode in formation along the highway. Jacques had spotted some “experienced Audax riders ahead” and increased the pace to try and catch them. After noticing he was riding solo, he slowed down and we had a group chat about this idea of catching another bunch at this point in the game. A few choice words were spoken (Foxtrot Oscar for those who wanted to know my thoughts on this pace lifting idea), and Sam explained to Jacques that I had no more f’s to give, and me then bursting into hysterical laughter at their combined faces, we continued our more stately progression down the highway. All 18km of it, until Jacques pointed out the rail trail turnoff. I hadn’t (obviously) updated my route and didn’t have this detour, but he did so off we went on to the gravel.

For about 4km I was cranky. Don’t get me wrong, I do love gravel, but after 1038km of hot feet and saddle sores so big that I’m sure they could be seen from outer space, I wasn’t interested in riding anything but the smoothest possible roads. But it did get us off the main road, and after a bit I started to enjoy myself. “This was an adventure!” I thought. I then had a few moments of recapping the memories of our ride so far and how far we had travelled, literally and figuratively, to get to this point. We crossed a bridge, ran into Robert Hoehne (one of the Audax photographers) and I knew then we were on the right track and hadn’t gone off course (lucky for Jacques or I’m sure there could have been a mutiny). I started thinking about how I’d write up this 12km section of rail trail adventure into this blog… but 12 turned into 16, which then turned into 25… and it started being a bit less of an adventure and a bit more of a hurt locker. We stopped at a servo for Calippos and softdrinks, and off we went. For more gravel… seriously… can’t we just take the highway??

I let the Velos go on ahead and I hung back about a 100m. It’s not that I didn’t want to ride with them, but I really felt at this point I needed some solitude. I rode a lot of solo gravel on the lead up during training, and I really enjoy the peace and quiet of the gravel crunching under my tyres. That and it gave me more opportunities for butt shots of the boys.

Total rail trail gravel: 52km.

Just after 12 we rolled into Yea for our first checkpoint of the day. Discussions were had with the other riders about how far we had gone on the optional gravel section. Wait a minute, optional? Pretty sure if looks could kill Jacques may have dropped at that point. 52km we said. Hold on, you rode the ENTIRE RAIL TRAIL here? Yup! Legends we are. Legends. Just don’t ask the Velos to ride gravel with you any time soon, kinda like don’t mention the war.

Once we established how epic the Velos were, we crossed the road to the bakery and I finally got some magical cinnamon donuts into me. Happy days!! #savedbycinnamon!! But coming up was Whittlesea, and that meant we had two climbs in front of us. Again, 60km with two climbs isn’t usually a big deal, but the temperatures would reach 35 degrees that day… and we already had over 1100km in our legs.

This to me is where the selflessness of the official Audax volunteers cannot be overstated. They had one official volunteer stashed on the top of the first climb with waters and coke, which must be the lifeblood of the Audax rider. We had agreed on a stop at the bottom of the climb in the flat section, and once we got there the boys pulled over for a break. Lucky for them, this break ran right alongside a creek, so shedding my shoes and socks I hobbled down the embankment and got my swollen feet into the water. Shear bliss, and I’m sure this saved me for the rest of the ride.

A few kms down the road another official volunteer (Anne) had parked her truck on the side of the road, yelling “what do you need?!” at us. WATER!! we cried back, and she did a quick u-turn and sped down the road to get ahead of us. About 5km later caught us all on the side of the road for water refills and fresh cherries, which tasted marvellous. Another km later we passed Howard (the ride organiser) sitting on the side of the road at the base of the climb with a cooler of drinks, checking to make sure riders were okay. We waved and headed on, and I smiled at him as I climbed past, calling out “turtle power!” based on the speeds I was doing. But it didn’t matter. As long as I was moving I was heading closer to the finish line. Both climbs later and one super fun descent we found the checkpoint at Whittlesea.

It was now 4pm and we only had 39km left to go. I sent out a few messages letting people know we were getting close, downed a double dose of salt on my hot chips, had the water bottles filled with ice thanks to the lovely staff at Maccas, and we set off again. However, the closer we got to Melbourne the more and more traffic built up, and the less patience we had for hitting yet again every red light into the city. Finally we were through the lights, and we weaved our way down the bike paths towards the end. Nerves were getting shorter, tempers started to fray, and I was just barely holding it together. Jacques had white line fever, and would sprint away with ever green light, which had me tearily questioning Brian why he needed to do that. We were all struggling, near and yet so far, and it felt like we were never going to get to the velodrome.

Rounding yet another corner and yet another set of lights, we hit a little downhill patch, and it felt like we were finally clear of the mayhem. I felt a rider behind me, and with a quick shoulder check to see who would be drafting at this point I spotted Jem. He had riden out from the velodrome to see us in. Trying not to absolutely lose it once again, I gave him a huge grin and then tried not to fall off my bike. We must be close if he was here! One more path, then I noticed Brian trying to wave us through to take the lead in. Jem and I rode to the front, and then spotting the velodrome Jem pulled over to the side to let me and the Velos enter.

I could hear my kids absolutely screaming their heads off, and as I hit the velodrome I was sprayed with champagne* by my wonderful friend June who had come to watch me finish. My spirits lifted, and I hit the track in a full sprint** and around I went, sure the boys were going to be hot on my tail (what I failed to mention throughout the blog was the constant sprint for the town sign contest between mostly Sam and Jacques all the way through the ride). Half way through I did a quick shoulder check and realised they were no where near me, which meant that I crossed the finish line first, raised fist in victory. Having overshot the exit, I then proceeded to do one more lap at a more reasonable pace, trying to catch the boys before they finished, before coming in to the finish line.

Hugs for the kids and my two amazing friends who made sure they were there to watch us finish, then I all but flew into Max’s arms where, in true Tiffo finish style, I wept. Glasses of champagne*** were handed out, and pictures of the Velos were taken. Amazingly we were all smiling, if only just. Another amazing Audax volunteer who had been keeping up with my story on Instagram ran over with a towel and a bag of ice to put on my feet, and Max handed me another glass of champagne.

Sydney-to-Melbourne. #SM1200. Complete.

*may have just been cheap sparkling wine

**hit a top speed of 35.9km/h

***actual champagne this time

Side note: on the car on the way home Max wanted to know ‘what next.’ Which is a fair question, I’ve been building up on events ever since I got on the bike last year. But this time there isn’t much bigger, unless I want to start doing overseas travel, solo events, and/or bike packing, which has no appeal to me whatsoever. I am not a lone wolf, and needed my crew with me to get through this ride. I’m better with friends, even if at a few stages I’m sure they wanted to push me off a cliff. Besides, if they didn’t ride with me, who would take all the butt photos?

Thank You’s

The phenomenal work of the Woodend Velos cannot be put into words. Thank you for believing in me and letting me join you on this journey.

• Brian: for your never ending positive words and your unfailing consistency in the face of my breakdown. Thank you so much for just being there and not letting me fall too far.
• Jacques aka Dr Frog Legs: we’ve done something truly epic yet again my friend. You can descend the mountain with me anytime. Next time we need to increase the karaoke time.
• Sammy: for knowing when I just had no more ‘effs to give’ and still laughing with me. For taking pics of me when all you wanted to do was sit down and eat. And for not giving up either. We did it hot chips, we did it.
• To Jem for texting me throughout the ride and making sure I was okay, and then joining me on the final run to the finish. No words coach. No words.
• To Marty for coming up with the original SM1200 training plan and for your inspirational words regarding saddle sores (they will be the worst you will ever get. They’ll heal). I just got on my bike and rode. I fell off. Then I got up and rode again. You were right.

Thank you also to those who commented on social media and texted me while I was riding. I didn’t have any time to respond to you during the ride, but your words were read and they provided a huge source of encouragement to me during the ride.

Beyond colossal thanks to my husband Max for his support this year. He had to bear the brunt of all the insecurities, all the anxiety attacks, all the questions of faith, and the never-ending discussions about if I was doing the right thing. He drove all the bikes up to Sydney for the Velos, then drove back again to Melbourne on Sunday night, then drove back to the Velodrome with the kids to watch us finish. It isn’t easy being married to me and putting up with all my crazy. You are my heart. And to my kids. I hope that I inspire you a little bit and I didn’t squeeze you both too hard at the finish line. Can’t wait to make you pancakes on Saturday morning.

And last but not least to my Dad, who stayed up for hours and hours watching my dot, followed my stories on Instagram and Facebook, and kept a steady stream of encouragement. I’ve wanted my entire life to make you proud. Thank you for saying that I did.

Stats

• Total distance: 1204km
• Total vertical climbed: 13,292m (as per Strava)
• Start to finish elapsed time: 84 hours 23 min
• On-bike elapsed time: 65 hours 50 min
• Moving time: 53 hours 3 min
• Estimated moving time as per the original spread sheet: 53 hours
• 23km/h average speed
• Calories burnt: 22,700
• Max temperature: 35 degrees C
• Min temperature: 7 degrees C
• Donuts consumed: 2 (serious lack of donuts this ride, perhaps that’s where things went wrong…)

Other Interesting Facts

The Sydney-Melbourne Alpine 1200 has only run twice before, once in 2009 and once in 2013. The number of finishers can be seen below:

Year	Finishers	Women
2009	29	3
2013	39	3
2017	34	3

Here’s hoping the next time it runs in 2021 that more than 3 women enter and finish the event!