SamanthaGash

I think China's Gobi Desert was the hardest for me. The terrain for the long 110km stage was very monotonous and as it reached 7pm at night, the clouds parted and it got incredibly hot - just when you thought you would have a rest from the heat..

When I did the Simpson desert I saw a few dingoes who were stalking me from behind.

In Antarctica plenty of penguins - who we had to give way to.

I ran cross country in school - predominately because I was pretty uncoordinated at most other sports and found I couldn't mess up a team by running ;)

Then I really started to take it up in my last year of high school as a needed release from the study.

I did my first marathon in 2008, which felt like a big step up from what I had done before. Then I decided to take on an ultra marathon because I wanted to test out my personal capabilities in an environment where I knew no one. Then I got hooked!!!

Little did I know, that you always draw from the strength of other people during these events.

You would hardly believe but my feet were really reasonable in all of the races except for Atacama - when I wore the wrong shoes for the technical salt flats.

When I ran for 3 and a half days straight across the Simpson Desert, my feet were very swollen.. Incredibly swollen - but I still didn't have any blisters.. Very lucky (recommend the combination of Injinji socks and Brooks shoes)

Ahh that is such a lovely thing to say. I think Jen (filmmaker) did an incredible job truly portraying what happened out there.

To be honest I really tuned the camera out - for the exception of the one on one interviews when we weren't "racing". Jen and the cameraman Sevan became good friends to all of the four runners in the doco, that seeing them became an outlet to express our pain, happiness, anxiety with during the race.