Bonny Wakefield and Danielle Mill, who by their own admission are just a couple of “ordinary chicks”, will compete in the Wangaratta Ned Kelly Chase 100km ultramarathon.

Beginning their run at 10pm they will complete two ‘laps’ of Wangaratta (mostly on sealed pathways) and hope to finish 12-14 hours later.

During their run they will stop at designated ‘fuel stops’ where their support person, Jenny Short, will dole out whatever they require – be it a vegemite sandwich, chicken soup, fruit, lollies or a simple hug and a few encouraging words.

Of course participating in such an event is not for the faint hearted and certainly not something to be entered into without extensive training.

Bonny and Danielle began training for the event five months ago and in that time have run hundreds of kilometres.

With the event starting at 10pm, much of their training has taken place in the wee-small hours with training runs at 10pm and 3am not uncommon.

Their longest training run was 70km – starting at 3am and finishing a little after midday.

There has also been some middle-of-the-night training – starting at 10pm and running for five hours.

These runs were thankfully uneventful, interrupted only by phone messages from their support person, just to check they were okay and hadn’t fallen into a pothole or been knocked over by an over-enthusiastic macropod!

They have run in the rain, the heat and the frost. Some mornings during winter they were wearing up to four layers of clothing, two sets of gloves, two pair of socks and a beannie.

However training hasn’t included running alone with a combination of strength (weights) and interval training (HIIT) forming part of their training regime.

In addition to training, the girls have considered their diet very carefully. Running such a distance takes an enormous toll on the body and its fuel reserves – you simply cannot run 100km on just a banana and a handful of sports gels!

A sports nutritionist has been a valuable asset to Bonny and Danielle, guiding them through their nutrition requirements.

“We eat A LOT,” Bonny laughed.

“Yes, there is some carb loading, but we have also learnt the importance of nourishing our bodies with plenty of protein straight after a run. In addition we now also realise the importance of eating before we start our training runs.”

Which brings them to the planning and preparation of their training runs.

“It takes hours to prepare for our training,” Danielle said.

“We take it in turns to prepare snacks for our ‘fuel stops’ and then to put drinks out along the track. By the time we do this the day is all but gone and it is time to think about dinner and an early night so we can be up at 4am to eat again before heading out on our actual training run.

“It just takes so much time. I think we are both looking forward to reclaiming our weekends.”

So what has training for this epic event taught them?

“Well, for a start you can get chaffing in some really weird places!” Danielle said.

“We have learnt that the body achieves what the mind believes,” Bonny added.

This couple of ‘sole sisters’ have set themselves to a challenge.

To the casual observer they are seen as being far from ordinary – the word extraordinary (and maybe a little crazy) springs to mind.

So when you wake up on Sunday morning, spare a thought for these two extraordinary women who will be out there running the race of their lives.