Who says you can’t?
Ultra runner Fiona Conway has completed around 40 marathons and 10 ultra marathons in cities across the world, including the famous Comrades Marathon in South Africa.
Ultra Runner
“My journey started when I was about 40. We were living in Durban, in South Africa, and I was heavily into the gym,” Fiona explains. When a friend suggested she run the Two Oceans Half Marathon in Cape Town before attending a wedding in the city later that same day, a personal trainer brushed off the idea as “a bit harder than running 10k on the treadmill.”
That doubt became her incentive to go all-in on training for the event. “I left the gym, bought a Runner’s World magazine, and thought, ‘Well, I’ll show you.’ Being told I couldn’t do it really motivated me.”
Being kind to yourself
Since then, the mental aspect of running is where Fiona has discovered the true challenge lies. “I actually think that’s more important than the physical, because the body can do it.”
This mindset has long been a foundation of her approach. “I’m a real believer of what I can do. I never tell myself I can’t do something, because you just do it. Even when things are tough in a race... I don’t believe in this idea that ‘I can’t’. It’s all about being kind to yourself and saying, ‘Well, actually, you are doing this, so yes, you can do this.’”
Ideas become distances
Fiona’s progression from a half marathon runner to an ultra marathon competitor happened organically, often through casual chats with those around her. “A lot of it has just been me having conversations with friends, and not so much being challenged by people but, ‘Oh, why don’t I do that?’”
Her connection to South Africa led her to one of the most iconic ultra events in the world. “There’s a very famous race called the Comrades Marathon, which runs from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. Every time I spoke to my friends down there, they’d say to me, “‘You’re not a runner until you’ve run Comrades.’”
At 90 kilometres (about 56 miles), Comrades represents two marathons plus a few more miles on top. Runners have 12 hours to reach the finish line, and it alternates direction each year. Naturally, completing it once wasn’t enough. “I ran one way, I immediately finished, and my friends said, ‘Yeah, but you know you haven’t run it properly until you run it the other way.’ So the next year that’s what I did. That’s how I roll, really.”
“I’m a real believer of what I can do. I never tell myself I can’t do something.”
Running as exploration
Over time, though, Fiona’s approach to running has evolved from following strict training plans to appreciating the journey itself. “I think I started to enjoy travelling and running,” she says.
This led to spur-of-the-moment marathon entries during vacations. “Once, we were flying out to Thailand on a family holiday, and inside the in-flight magazine, I saw there was a marathon in Pattaya.”
“It was in Thai, and I wasn’t even sure I’d entered, but it didn’t matter. I took a three-hour ferry ride from where we were staying to Pattaya, and at 3am, I walked down to this high street, the starting gun blew, and off I went. It was a massive marathon. And there I was in hot, humid Thailand with no plan whatsoever.”
That’s the added bonus of running: you can discover new places anywhere in the world, sometimes even spontaneously. “It becomes a nice way to travel and go away with friends. You know how some people have golfing weekends? You could get a group together and, say, go to Rome or Paris. It’s a really lovely way to explore a city.”
Comrades Marathon, Durban/Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Where the mind settles
But perhaps the most unique appeal of endurance events is in the mental state you can access, and Fiona draws parallels between running and yoga.
“What’s quite nice about endurance events is that you can settle into a little rhythm. It’s a bit like yoga. When you get on your mat, you just block everything off. You tell yourself, ‘Okay, I’m going to relax now. I’m going to breathe properly.’”
Mindfulness provides steady support through the inevitable challenges of ultra-distance events. “You’ve got to settle down, hope that it feels comfortable for as long as possible, and embrace whatever happens. You embrace the weather. You embrace ‘I've got a bit of a sore toe, or I’ve got a bit of blister’, because you know that in a few hours’ time, you’ll have forgotten about that and something else will hurt.”
“You’ve got to settle down, hope that it feels comfortable for as long as possible, and embrace whatever happens.”
Active positivity
Fiona credits her positive outlook as essential to her resilience, along of course with yoga, which has “helped me massively.” She explains one strategy in particular that supports her through those moments when her body is screaming for attention.
“One of the things I don’t do is that if something hurts, where I’m really struggling and I’m running with somebody, I’ll never verbalise it. I’ve got this thing that once I verbalise it, it’s real and it’s happening. As long as I don’t say it, it’s fine. At the end, when I cross the line, I can think, “God, that was really tough.’ But I won’t say it’s tough at the time, because that makes it tough.”
She believes in active positivity during events: “I’ve listened to a lot of motivational talks, and I remember somebody saying that you choose your experience of the day.
“Rather than saying, ‘Oh my God, I’ve still got 10 more miles to go,’ celebrate every mile and tell yourself you are amazing.”
“If you look at your posture, you’re meant to be upright, to look ahead, have your chin up and your shoulders down. You decide if you want to look at the mud or the pavement and be bent over, telling yourself this is really grim. It will be if you’re looking at the ground. But if you’re looking up, you’ll see the blue sky, and you might even see someone in the crowd smiling at you.”
In short, it’s a perspective that focuses on celebration rather than suffering. “Life is all about being fit and strong and peaceful and happy, isn’t it? Isn’t that the whole purpose of all this? It’s just being healthy.”
“Rather than saying, ‘Oh my God, I’ve still got 10 more miles to go,’ celebrate every mile and tell yourself you are amazing. You’ve just run 16 miles – not many people have or can run 16 miles. Well done. And actually say well done to yourself as you’re running.”
Resilience through challenge
“Generally in life, I’ve always been one of those ‘I’ll show you’ people,” says Fiona. “Growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, you were often told, ‘Oh, you’re a girl. You can’t do that.’ I’d think, ‘I will do that, and I’ll be fine.’”
From the very beginning, this philosophy has been a consistent source of strength in events designed to push you to the limit. “I’ve always been one to find things out for myself. If I can’t do it, I can’t do it, but I’m going to try. Honestly, if someone says I can’t do something, I’ll just think, ‘Why not?’ I’m going to give it a go, and invariably, I do it.”
Running is about much more than physical achievement – it represents exploration, mindfulness, and understanding what’s possible. And “as long as the body can keep doing it, I’m definitely going to be out there.”
“I want to be able to have that freedom, to get up in the morning, put my trainers on, and just go out for a little mooch around. It makes me happy, and I do genuinely love it. I never come back from a run feeling unhappier than when I left.”
