OPEN YOUR EYES, Look up to the skies and see …
At irregular intervals during the day and night, this voice propels its owner – Claire O’Brien Smith – forward on the Cape to Cape Track. She’s alone, except for the occasional visitor – the kind she fears, the kind she’s hoping to sing away. The dreaded snakes.
But the snakes, if they sense her, don’t mind. And after a while, either does Claire. Such is the power of song – especially during a 130km run on a rugged coastline trail in the southwest corner of Western Australia.
Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me,
To me.
In February 2021, Claire set off on an unsupported fastest known time attempt on the Cape to Cape Track, which stretches between Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse in the north and Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in the south of Western Australia. Claire had been planning this run for a year. But in a sense, you could say she had been preparing for it her whole life.
“I was brought up in the country three hours from Perth, so I grew up as a farm girl running around the paddocks,” says Claire, who was just shy of 30 when she embarked on her 130km solo odyssey. “Then, I came up to Perth for boarding school and got into more serious running.”
School cross country and athletics led to Claire’s love of the trails and, more recently, ultra running. “I’m loving the long stuff,” Claire says. “I feel like slower and longer suits me!”
In 2019, Clare paced her friend, Shane Johnstone, during his Cape to Cape FKT in the male supported category. “He nailed it,” Claire says. “He did it in just under 16 hours (15h 54m and 44s). And
