Courtney runs during the #InJust7Days project.

Fitness

The 8 best running trails in Australia

For Olympic triathlete Courtney Atkinson, running eight of Australia's best trails wasn't enough of a challenge. So he did it #InJust7Days

By Oliver Pelling

9 min readPublished on 01/23/2019 · 12:59 AM UTC

Courtney Atkinson is a human who does things that most other humans can’t.

He has built a career off of this fact, and has been dominating endurance feats, both in Australia and internationally, for the best part of two decades (including a few Olympic Game appearances in the Triathlon discipline). He can run on sand, he can run on snow, he can run through deserts, and he can run through rainforests. He could probably run in space, given half a chance.

While running is part of his job, it’s also his passion. And in his spare time, he likes to dream up new ways to make the most of his passion. This year, those plans involved running eight of Australia’s best and most iconic trails – as decided by him – in just seven days.

Watch Courtney tackle eight trails #InJust7Days:

His adventure took him from Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory, down to Wilpena Pound in South Australia, across to the Cape to Cape trail in Western Australia, over to the 12 Apostles trail in Victoria, down to Tasmania’s Wineglass Bay trail, then the Parliament House trail in Canberra, Mount Kosciuszko in New South Wales, and finally up to Hinchinbrook Island in Queensland.

To achieve this quite ridiculous feat, he ran for over 14 hours, across a total of 137 kilometres, took 12 flights, and spent 43 hours driving a total of 3556 kilometres. He also filmed the whole thing as he ran it. His gruelling schedule meant his usual rest and recovery periods were almost non-existent, a fact that he reckons actually helped, rather than hindered his efforts.

We caught up with Courtney to ascertain what on earth he thinks he’s playing at by taking on Olympian feats and giving himself just a 7 days to do them…

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RedBull.com: Courtney, you already ran up and down a bunch of Australian mountains in just seven days last year. Why’d you do something like this again?

Courtney Atkinson: To me, it was just another opportunity to find how much I could push myself every day, while seeing these iconic trails and some of the best locations in our country. It was about running in these places, having limited recovery time and a lot of travel, and still being able to back it up.

1. Kings Canyon, Northern Territory

What did you learn, if anything, about your body during the project?

Why do you think that is?

I think a lot of it's got to do with the fact that I wasn’t giving myself a chance to dwell, and I just got straight into the next thing. I was giving myself this new goal every day, or even multiple goals on the same day.

I had to think about getting to the plane, getting on the plane, the car travel, where I was going to stay, then of course the running. So there were all these continual mini-goals along the way, it just didn’t give me time to even think about it.

2. Wilpena Pound, South Australia:

The challenge itself would’ve been enough – why did you decide to film every step of the way too?

From my point of view, that's what differentiates me. To be out in these places, take on these challenges and look after my own filming, it’s just about being as capable as I can be. I love trail running, I love seeing new places, and I love exploring. And the whole challenge of doing it fast, in just seven days, gives me a real challenge and excites me. But I don't see the point of doing the project and not sharing it.

I'm doing it for the same reason most people want to travel, which is to see things I want to see. But the challenge element just takes it up a level for me, and makes it more exciting.
Courtney Atkinson

The main reason we're sharing it is to just provide raw inspiration for others to get out there and see these places. It doesn't mean that you have to go out and run it as hard as I do, but I can be the inspiration, and you can go and hike it. We’ve got a pretty damn good backyard – I just want as many of us to get out of the cities and go and explore these places.

3. Cape to Cape, Western Australia:

And it’s not clear in the video, but you filmed it all as it happened, didn’t you? You didn’t go round once slowly and film it, then again at pace?

Yep, all the POV camera is by me, 100% live. Then we might have someone help with a drone and do a time-lapse, and somebody might jump-in the trail at a certain point and follow me for 100 metres or so with a gimbal (for the follow-cam), but that’s it. All the POV is me running, as I ran it, at pace.

Do you think people can learn something from challenging themselves in a similar, albeit less intense, fashion?

I think it's a little bit dependent on how you're wired, right? Like, some people like holidaying on a beach and just relaxing, and others like getting out and using their holidays to explore. But the whole idea for me is actually putting a time constraint on it. I'm getting to see everything I want to see, but I’m putting this goal around it and turning it into a race. It just works with my personality, and that's what makes it exciting for me, introducing the time constraint and the athletic side of it.

Then at its core, I'm doing it for the same reason most people want to travel, which is to see things I want to see. But the challenge element just takes it up a level for me, and makes it more exciting.

4. 12 Apostles, Victoria

What was the method in terms of choosing where you ran?

Firstly, I wanted to go to a majority of new places that I hadn’t seen before, of course. Second, we didn’t want them to be too wild, we wanted them to be actually doable for most trail runners. And third, we just wanted to make sure we showcased as much of Australia’s different terrain as possible. I think each one had a little bit of Australia in it, in a different way.

I guess a trip like this teaches you all about patience, persistence, rolling with the punches, that kind of thing?

Yeah. It does. And that goes us back to the whole idea of setting it up in seven days – it teaches you how to react to stress, physical and mental. It helps you respond to things, and that can be transferred to other types of racing I do.

I think, whether it's in business, athletics, or sports, whatever you do, the lessons you learn from dealing with stressful, harsh and strange situations stay with you.

5. Wineglass Bay, Tasmania:

How important do you think it is to always be challenging yourself, in whatever you're doing?

I mean, I don't think it always needs to be a challenge. I just think it’s healthy and it's important to have one real passion for something outside of your day to day. When it comes to just life in general, I think if you can continue to make sure you enjoy something you’re passionate about, and you keep finding ways to make it interesting it doesn't matter what you’re doing. Just finding new ways to enjoy that passion keeps you healthy and happy.

The basis of improvement in sport is that if you train hard, you need to give yourself time to recover. Well, why should it be any different in day-to-day life?
Courtney Atkinson

For me, racing at the world level was my day-to-day. That’s was the job. So now I’ve got to look for was feeling the racing high but finding the enjoyment outside of that as well. And my personality, and what keeps me going is competitiveness and challenges, and having some kind of rigorous challenge, like running seven mountains in a week.

6. Parliament House, Australian Capital Territory

But that's not going be the same for everyone, and that’s fine, but I think everyone can have a passion and continually making sure that day-to-day life doesn't get in the way of chasing that passion, whatever it is. If you've got that, I think you'll always be happy and healthy.

So that's an interesting point. There's so much focus in modern life around challenging yourself, but you’re saying focusing on your passions is more important?

The basis of improvement in sport is that if you train hard, you need to give yourself time to recover. Well, why should it be any different in day-to-day life? If you work hard, and you recover properly, you improve. If you don’t recover properly, and you’re always on to the next thing, and never making time for those passions or things you enjoy outside of the day to day, you’re never going to recover, and you’re never going to improve.

7. Mount Kosciuszko, New South Wales

It just so happens that your idea of ‘recovering’ is running up mountains…

You just hit it on the head. I’m lucky that my passion for running is also my job, so there’s crossover between ‘work’ and ‘play’. But outside of ‘work’, running is still my passion, and even though it happens to be a physical pursuit, for me, it’s still a restorative thing to do, something I find relaxing, and something that helps me recover from the ‘work’ and competitive racing-side of what I do.

I think in today's world, a lot of people go and do greats things, whether they’re physical feats or business ideas of whatever, but they're doing them for the wrong reasons. They’ve got to be being doing them because they want to do it, not because it's the trendy thing to do, or what everyone else is doing at the time. It's got to be a personal passion.

8. Hinchinbrook Island, Queensland

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from this epic project?

Just get out and explore Australia. Whether that’s running, cycling, hiking, or just walking at whatever pace you’re comfortable with. Just get outside!