Tuesday, June 06, 2006

now thats what i call a hill

tamborine trek report - 62km 27.5.06.
...spent the next 2 weeks post GH80 not doing much running-wise. made the trip to warwick for the 10km killarney ascent (i love hills!) and enjoyed the social atmosphere of the day.
nice to meet some CR 'southerners' - jen_runs, owl, miners.
certainly need to do the whole 5 events there one year.
tamborine CR report is here: http://www.coolrunning.com.au/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=000392;p=1
the brief version is i finished 11th/15 in 7.54 which i was pretty damn pleased with.
hadnt done this run before and put a lot of preparation into it in terms of logistics.
ruth (my other half) came with me so i booked a nice place at mt tamborine which made it a bit of a drive to the startline at nerang but it was worth it.
spent some time looking at maps and even rang the nerang state forest people so they could send me a trail map of the area.
printed out my own maps (how anal! - but better than the ones on the race website) so i could carry one with me and i'm glad i did.
had done most of my trail running at glasshouse before so with my sense of direction and nav skills (or lack thereof) i was a little worried i'd get lost like most of the field did last year!
unfortunately managed to catch the nasty gasto bug which is flying around at the moment on the wednesday night beforehand and spend a few hrs of early thursday morning in at work (i'm a doctor) on a drip.
probably would have struggled on at home a bit longer if i wasnt running tamborine but thought it wise to get a couple of litres of fluid into me.
still felt terrible on thursday (which was a worry when i was supposed to leave on friday morning) but kept the accomodation etc.. booked.
felt better friday (was actually hungry again by lunchtime) and made the trip down late morning.
had an initial goal of 7.5-8hrs looking at results from previous years but revised this to 8-8.5 in view of 'the squirts'.
the run is pretty nice - first 16km in nerang state forest on wide firetrails with good footing. then an annoying road bit for a few kms - lots of traffic before the traffic thins and you go up this enormous hill (mt tamborine) which is about a 550m climb in 3-3.5km or so (and then head back the same way).
had driven the road bits in the car the day before which was good because i certainly knew what was coming and left enough juice in the tank for it.
you can actually see the TV tower (at the half way turnaround) from about the 5km mark in the forest so its all a bit daunting!
arrived at halfway in just under 4 hours and figured 7.40 was on the cards but faded a bit in the long road section before the forest.
got a text message or 2 from whippet and phoned ruth once or twice with progress reports and its amazing how uplifting that is.
there was a 2.5km (5km total) out and back loop (with 12-7km to go) in the forest which was very useful for seeing where u are position wise - managed to catch RMC and a NZ girl (karen) in that loop and was eyeing off geoff last for a while (he was 8mins ahead of me on the loop).
gee those last 4km were long! have never looked behind me so many times before. saw geoff about 200m ahead at one stage and just thought ... yeah whatever!
managed to dehydrate myself pretty badly in this one in fact i dont think ive felt this bad for so long after an ultra - even glasshouse 100 miler a few years back.
it took me a good 3 hours or so to feel like my brain was working.
i must have looked like an absolute nitwit at the finish.
i must have drunk about 3-4 litres of tea/fizzy drink/juice over the next few hours.
at least my tummy wasnt complaining!
got up at one stage after a little lie down back at the unit and my right shin started cramping.
moved my weight (well there's not much of me!) onto the left leg then that shin started cramping.
whenever i watch the footy i see players cramp and i think 'get up you bloody pussy' - guess i've never had much in the way of cramps before!
spend the next 10 minutes crawling around on the ground screaming.
i can laugh about it now.
recovered enough to take ruth out to a nice place for dinner.
as per usual post ultra i feel really hungry but my stomach fills quickly so i didnt eat much.
went to work the next day and people thought i was an idiot for running 62km especially after being unwell ... i probably was!
realistically i dont think it affected my time - probably more just the condition in which i finished and my recovery.
this run certainly puts events like bogong hotham into perspective - B2H would have at a guess (havent looked it up) maybe 3 times the ascent/descent than this run - as well as weather extremes and tougher terrain.
hope i'm fit and healthy in january!!
2 ultras in 2 weeks. its bloody great to be back running again!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home