The instructor that day called for a passive jog from Brickfields Reserve to Royal Park.

The distance is around 850 metres.

The novice runner had quickly realised she was about as far from ever running 100 kilometres straight as she ever would be.

“When I eventually got down there, I literally couldn’t breath,” she says.

“I hated it and thought why did my friend ask me to come to this boot camp, what am I doing and how was I going to last the rest of the session if I can’t run from point A to B.

“I was really unfit and I pulled up really sore after that session.

“So, when a lot of people now say it’s easy for you, because they get puffed just running up the street, I say that actually was me.”

Webb still pinches herself that she has run half the distance of Launceston to Hobart.

The 29-year-old will never boast to being the best runner around but not too many can say they have completed the Launceston ultra-marathon distance and survived it.

That says a lot in itself because some men just couldn’t last it.

After trepidatiously trying out her luck at 10km races first, then dabbling away in half-marathons and eventually the full 41.195kms, there was one challenge left.

But among all the nervy final stretches and a last look around the competition before tackling the Everest-like 100kms, another challenge unexpectedly arose.

“I was really surprised when I turned up and I was the only girl there,” she says.

“All the boys were saying to me, ‘Well, at least you’ll win this’ and I said, ‘Well, I have to finish’ because with this event there is always people who don’t finish.

“I also didn’t realise at the time I got my dates mixed up – I didn’t realise that was so close to the Melbourne Marathon, which was only three weeks after. 

“So that was a really tough day out [last Sunday], but I made it through it.”

The Melbourne race would appear more a jaunt on face value than anything else had it not been for running at least 140 kilometres all inside the space of 21 days.

So much so that training for the famous run that was celebrating 40 years had almost taken a breather on the sidelines.

“The 100k takes a fair bit of a toll on your body and it takes a good couple of weeks to feel like running again,” she adds.

“And you can’t do a 100k training run or else you’ll be buggered from that.”

Only six days back, an estimated 7000 runners burst out to the sound of a starting gun and of which 1700 were females.

But all eyes were on Webb among the only woman from the 10 brave souls, all prepared to test and almost torture their bodies on a pleasant Sunday in Launceston.

“Being the only female and turning up, 100 per cent I wanted to finish, but I guess more to show people that girls can do that distance too,” she says.

“That was definitely a big part of it, but being the only female there I was the only representation of females.

“And I ended up beating half the boys, so that was pretty good. Afterwards lot of them had a lot of respect for me.”

Webb toiled hard on the bitumen for just on 11 hours and 15 minutes.

For the Launceston accountant, they’re impressive numbers to crunch.

But it was the enormity of the distance that started to grate on the mind more so than any of the joints late in the run.

She thought of “everything” to occupy the time amid a range of emotions.

After 10 endless laps of the inner-city course, there was finally sheer relief.

“That was my biggest and perhaps my only fear, really,” she says.

“Going into the 100k, I wasn’t really worried about how long it would take me, whereas usually when I do a 10k run, I am aiming for a time and I’m really stressed because I want that time or something like.

“But the 100k, I just wanted to do it and I had also told so many people I was doing it – and that started to stress me out a lot because what if I can't finish and then I have to tell everybody I couldn’t finish it.

“I had arranged to meet my friends at the pub afterwards and I thought what if I don’t finish, am I still going to meet them or am I going to go home?

“I think especially when I got to the 70km mark, I just thought I have to take this easy now and finish it. 

“But especially also when I turned up being the only girl – I kind of then thought a little bit pressured then to be able to finish.”

Webb hit the near-deserted finish line absolutely beaming, largely through her husband’s support when Alex jogged the last 2½ kilometres, further uttering words of encouragement to the very end.

That happy demeanour masqueraded what she witnessed among the dwindling numbers still out on the course late through pure attrition.

“All day I just feared I would injure myself to the point that I couldn’t continue to run any more,” she says.

“I’d get sick, get dehydrated or at least one of those. A guy got pulled out at about the 85km mark – he was so heartbroken.

“My heart was breaking for him because you put so much training into getting that far and to be pulled from the race by medics is pretty tough.”

Still that sort of despair will not stop Webb trying the gruelling race again next year.

Next on the agenda is running the length of Bruny Island, a 64-kilometre distance she has accomplished before with aplomb.

It’s a long way from that boot camp when she first contemplated such vast distances.

But competition was not the only reason she decided to hit the pavement soon after her 21st birthday.

“I always had a great metabolism when I was young, but once after I started working I put on a lot of weight quickly,” she says.

“That’s when I thought I wanted to do something about it.”

But there was more to it all than just improving fitness levels.

After leaving home aged just 15 years old, taking up the long distances with the breeze whistling past her face cleared the head and even helped her mental health state.

“Running started to become a little bit of therapy for me when I was going through uni and further study,” she says.

“It was always my getaway to help me out with a few stress management issues and that kind of thing.”

But ticking off the bucket list and notching up the milestone will always last with Webb.

“I had set myself the goal of running 100k one day and I wanted to prove to myself, my friends, my family and everybody else I could do that and I have,” she says.