Alice springs pilot
MEDIA RELEASE
13 FEBRUARY 2012
New Zealand ultra runner Lisa Tamati is embarking on yet another endurance challenge to add to her already impressive CV of extreme achievements, this time an epic 125km adventure run through Australia’s scorching Red Centre, battling temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius.
On 24 February, 2012, Tamati will run in the historic footsteps of little-known Indigenous stockman, Hezekiel Malbunka, who in 1922, took up the gauntlet to run 126km from Hermannsburg, a Lutheran Mission desert outpost, overland to Alice Springs in order to save the life of missionary administrator, Carl Strehlow.
Regarded as one of Australia’s most important anthropological experts on the local Arrernte Indigenous culture, Strehlow lay dying at the mission homestead. As horses were being saddled to dispatch a message to the Telegraph Station at Alice Springs requesting medical assistance be sent from Adelaide, Malbunka declared that he would go faster on foot. From his sick bed, his friend Strehlow agreed and so Malbunka set off, arriving at the Telegraph Station a day and a half later, quicker than station hands agreed could have been achieved by their horses.
Tamati will film her attempt for a pilot television series dubbed Run The Planet, in which she joins forces with an Australian, Chris Ord, who is, he says “decidedly not an ultra runner.”
Ord will be her protégé for the series as she attempts to prove that an ordinary fun runner has the ability to achieve extraordinary running feats, setting the pair up for a series of challenges in locations around the world.
Tamati and Ord will travel the globe, searching for legends of extreme endurance undertaken on foot. They will then attempt to recreate each run, attempting distances of between 80km and 350km while asking the question: were humans really born to run?
“I argue yes,” says Tamati, who is constantly queried about her sanity. “I don’t think I’m crazy at all; anyone can do what I do, anyone is capable of it, it just requires training and the correct mindset – a will to overcome.”
For his part, Ord argues that’s an easy thing to say for someone who has run the length of New Zealand, run nearly every desert on the planet and the completed the world’s toughest footrace, the 222km La Ultra, an event which only seven people have ever completed which routes runners over two 5400-metre mountain passes.
“I crewed for Lisa at La Ultra,” says Ord. “And Run The Planet is the distillation of a bet, really, that Lisa could turn me into an ultra runner. We were discussing the amazing things some runners – particularly indigenous runners around the world – have achieved. And I guess I got the ultra bug a little after seeing what Lisa endured, and how she endured it. I wondered if it was possible for an ordinary guy like me to push myself to that level of, well, insanity.”
“She’s one tough woman. I’m not sure I’m that tough, but it’s going to be an interesting journey finding out.”
Tamati will speak to local experts to find out the details of the Malbunka and Strehlow story, including relatives of Malbunka and directors of the Carl Strehlow Research Centre, which holds key artifacts including an audio recording of Malbunka speaking in Arrernte language recounting his legendary run, and the few images of Malbunka that survive.
“As an Maori woman, the indigenous element of this story strongly appeals to me,” says New Plymouth-based Tamati. “Part of my message - that anyone can achieve great things, be that in running or other pursuits - is linked to the sedentary lifestyles modern society cultivates, especially for our Indigenous communities. Yet the stories we are unearthing show that Indigenous people were ‘born to run’ – they have an innate instinct and ability. It just needs to be tapped into. We want our show to highlight that while also pushing our own bodies and minds to the limit.”
People wanting to follow Lisa and her Run The Planet journey can get updates by ‘liking’ www.facebook.com/runtheplanettv.
Run The Planet the series is being produced by Lisa Tamati Productions P/L. Screening channels, dates and times are not yet available.
ENDS
For more information contact:
Lisa Tamati +64 218 44743 (NZ) lisayvonne38@hotmail.com
Chris Ord +61 4 303 76621 (AU) chris@adventuretypes.com