Kiwi ultradistance legend Sandy Barwick happy to see 34-year-old world record beaten

Sandy Barwick celebrates after becoming the first woman to ever finish the 1300 mile Sri Chinmoy race in New York, 1991. Photo / Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team

Suzanne McFadden for LockerRoom

For six days, Sandy Barwick lay in an Auckland hospital bed and watched as an American woman ran off with the world record she’d held for 34 years.

Even after undergoing major spinal surgery a fortnight ago, the consequence of a decade of ultradistance running, Barwick felt no pain or sadness.

Instead, she was overjoyed to see Camille Herron, an ultramarathon star from Oklahoma, break the world six-day record that Barwick - “a housewife from Milford” - had set in Australia back in 1990.

Last Wednesday, Herron finished the women-only six-day ultramarathon, called lululemon’s FURTHER, in California’s Coachella Valley, having run 560 miles - or 901km.

Barwick had set her record of 549 miles - or 883km - running around a 400m track in the Sydney suburb of Campbelltown for six days, on a strict regime of spending 20 hours a day on her feet. For decades, the Kiwi running legend was “blown away” that her record hadn’t been eclipsed.

But recently, Barwick could see Herron - who already holds a swag of world-best times - would finally be the woman to do it.

“I thought she’d be the one because she’s got speed,” says the 75-year-old, who now lives in Northland.

“Speed wasn’t always my thing, but I did a lot of miles and got faster. In the end, though, it’s about the stamina to stay out there and carry on.

“It was a truly amazing performance from Camille. This record has been a part of me for so long, but I just think it’s wonderful that a woman has finally run that far. It’s courageous and inspiring to all women.”

Sandy Barwick and Yiannis Kouros (right) set 1000 mile world records in New York, 1988. Photo / Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team

Barwick isn’t exactly sure how many of her nine world records she still holds - except for the women’s 1000-mile record of 12 days and 14 hours, set running around the streets of New York in 1991.

“That’s what records are there for - to be broken. That’s what competition is all about,” she says.

“I ran for records; it wasn’t for fun. I wanted to win.”

But there’s one milestone no one can strip from Barwick. She will always be the first woman to complete the 1300-mile (2092km) Sri Chinmoy race; then the world’s longest certified foot race.

A race she won outright - first man or woman - in 17 days and 22 hours, breaking eight world road records in the process.

During her decade as a competitive runner, Barwick ran around 90,000km (more than twice around the world, she says).

It’s little wonder her body has given her grief in recent years ­- with hip surgery and two back operations.

While Barwick was recovering from surgery to have metal cages inserted between four lumbar vertebrae last week, she was receiving frequent messages from American female ultra runners throughout Herron’s attempt on her record.

“I’ve watched the girls all try and do it over the years, and I still talk to a lot of them. They often ask, ‘Can you please help me do this?’ which is lovely,” Barwick says.

“I tell them you’ve got to run it like a business. My manager, Max Marsh, had me running like it was my business - I had to have a huge focus on what I was doing.

“During a race, I’d be running 10 hours, then I’d have a two-hour break. I’d have a massage eat, sleep in that time, then I’d run another 10 hours. And that’s what I trained for.”

Barwick would prepare her body for that by running 10 hours religiously every Sunday, starting from her home on Auckland’s North Shore and running across the city from west to east, and home again. She’d cover 100km in a day.

“Service station [attendants] would know I was coming and run out with a Cookie Time biscuit,” she says. “My dad would come out with sandwiches.

“The Takapuna Harriers would meet me at St Heliers to run with me and keep my pace up. Those runs were what got me breaking all those records in the end. My body knew how to run 10 hours.”

Running became part of her life soon after the death of her mother, when Barwick was 35 and herself a mum of two.

“My mum was very sick from the age of 18 when she had rheumatic fever. But she was a strong woman who never gave up,” Barwick says. “She had five of us, and she got us all into sport.

“She was my best friend, and when she died, it was horrible. My girlfriends said, ‘You should start running, come out with us’. We started with a jog around Milford, then ran up to the Auckland Domain. I got hooked.”

In 1981, Barwick ran the first of 14 marathons before ultramarathon legend Gary Regtien at the Takapuna Harriers club told her she’d make a great ultra runner.

“I had no idea what an ultra was,” she laughs. But she ran 50km in training and then dashed straight into a 24-hour race.

She was only going to run 70km as an experiment, but continued to break the Australasian women’s record - in a pair of tennis shoes.

Sandy Barwick managing the NZ team at the world 100km champs in Holland. Photo / Supplied

Surprised by how well she transitioned from marathons to ultras, Barwick decided her next big challenge would be the iconic five-day Sydney to Melbourne race in 1988.

She found $16,000 to take a crew with her. “I got a little money, and some beer, from Kiwi Lager, which the boys were pleased with,” she laughs.

Barwick finished second woman to British runner Eleanor Adams, who became her idol. “You have to have an idol, and I wanted to pick all her records off.”

Six weeks later, Barwick found herself standing on the start-line of the Sri Chinmoy 1000-mile race in New York, without a race crew.

“Then Ziggy Bauer [a Kiwi who’d held the men’s world record for 1000 miles] told a media conference, ‘What right does a Milford housewife have entering a 1000-mile world championship race?’” she says.

It was the kind of challenge she relished. Barwick finished the race in 14 days, 20 hours - even running in a plaster cast after straining her achilles - and became the world champion and world record holder. Her two teenage children arrived from New Zealand in time to see her cross the finish line. From there, her career sped up.

Barwick wanted to take the world six-day record from Adams, but finished 6km behind her at a race in Melbourne. “She couldn’t quite cope with me - she said, ‘You never sleep!’”

Knowing her idol’s records could be beaten, Barwick pulled it off in 1990, on a track in Sydney, running 883km. She took the race outright - 70km ahead of the first male athlete, in a field of top ultra runners.

“And we were out there to win it,” Barwick says. “I had my wonderful manager, and the help of my devoted team. Jos McDonald was my right-hand woman and masseur, and an awesome runner as well. They’re the people who help you break records.”

Barwick slept in a little tent by the track. “I slept on the massage table. I’d put my Brian Head meditation tape on and fall into a deep sleep. I practised self-hypnosis, which helped me so much,” she says.

She worked out how to get 9000 calories into her body each day: mushy pumpkin and kumara, Marmite by the spoonful, and kiwifruit with the skin on (the New Zealand Kiwifruit Marketing Board became her sponsor).

She would also drink Exceed, a liquid food that Marsh called her rocket fuel.

(Herron survived on pumpkin pie, tacos, Coke spiders and alcohol-free Guinness draught beer during her six days on the run).

Barwick wishes now she’d run another six-day race and surpassed the 900km mark. But at the time she had other things she wanted to achieve. “I was at the pinnacle of my running when I went to the 1300-mile race in New York,” she says.

“No woman had ever done it before and I thought this is my big opportunity. I was pleased I was the first woman, no one could ever take that away from me. But the big thing was how I’d improved my speed. When the 1000 miles came up, I’d broken my world record by two days and six hours. Nobody’s ever broken it.”

Barwick has always believed women run better than men in ultras.

“We’ve got fat on our body; I’ve watched those male runners and they’ve got no bottoms at the end of a race. They can’t even sit down because they need a cushion,” she says.

“I had some dark tough times and days that I cried - and I was allowed to cry privately on my massage bed because it hurt. It hurt when you got up, but once you warmed up you were away. But I really loved it.”

In 1992, Barwick decided it was time to give back - running the length of Aotearoa and raising money for diabetes. “It was such a pleasure; I love giving back,” she says.

Made a MBE in the 1994 Queens Birthday Honours, Barwick hung up her ultra shoes once Athletics NZ recognised her records, and then went to work for them for six years, as manager for national 24-hour and 100km teams travelling to world champs.

“I was also their cook, their mother, the runner alongside them and looked after them all through the race. I was their masseur afterwards and I just loved it,” says Barwick, who was also president of the NZ Ultra Marathon Association.

Away from running, Barwick started a career as a pharmaceutical rep, travelling the length of the country for two decades; her passion, vision and strength from running helped her become one of the best sales reps in the country, she says.

Now a grandmother of four teenagers, Barwick lives in Marsden Cove, south of Whangārei, and got her bar manager licence to tend bar at the local fishing and golf clubs.

“I’ve made a lot of friends up here. People love your stories. They look at me and say, ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’”

She powerwalks instead of runs since her first spinal surgery in 2014, and she started playing golf a few years ago. She hopes to play again once she’s recovered from the latest operation, but may have to alter her swing.

“I certainly think my life has been the best life,” she says. “I’ve done everything in my career that I wanted to do, and loved every minute of it. I just think I’m the luckiest girl.”

This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.