Sunday, December 27, 2009

Bring it!

leave tomorrow.
http://www.alpineultra.blogspot.com/

persistence.
patience.
determination.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Men can't do 2 things at once but at least they can read maps ;)

Razorback Run 5.12.09 58km 11.34 3rd/4.

more accurately called the mt feathertop skyrun as i only go over a bit of the razorback (inbetween feathertop/hotham) unlike the 64km version.

so i am heading down the diamantina spur with CR dianeE.
hard to describe this spur.
starts inoccuously enough but basically just keeps getting narlier and narlier.
even early on the track is very narrow and rocky and steep in parts.
lower down below the tree-line there are lots of loose twigs and long bits of bark to loop your foot in and trip over.
anyway...the point is relatively few had previously taken the 'correct' path down this spur before and it had me a little nervous.
approaching 1400m basically you 'fall' off the edge of the ridgeline to the ENE down a 'side-spur'.
of course i had used my new software to mark the trail and inbetween looking at my feet was attentively looking at the turning point with my 3rd half eye on my altimeter watch looking for the 1400m mark.
i had so many gadgets on this thing i couldn't possibly miss the turn.

suddenly dianeE says 'hey i see some yellow tape' yep right in front of us ... too busy looking at gadgets.
'and hey i see some more tape hey there's tape all the way down the side-spur'.
oh well i guess i could have just opened my eyes but of course men can't do 2 things at once!

and for the record i do realise that girls can read maps too - they just have to turn them the 'right' way around :p

seemed to struggle with this one.
just lacked 'zip' up the hills.
got up feathertop in 2.05 (1.48 5 weeks ago at the feathertop race) so maybe a bit quick early on with the pack and 46km further to go?
really struggled up the other 2 climbs to pole 333 and especially swindlers: having to actually stop and sit a couple of times!!

other problem was a couple of minor detours.
the memory map trail i had marked told me to take a right at a fork when it should've been a left.
hmmmmm or maybe i can't read a map either ;)
can't help it if the topo's are wrong i guess: they differed from the 'spatial vision' map.

in the end finish time slower than b2h (64km) 2 years ago but am encouraged by the fact i pulled things together from the top of swindlers on.
was very concerned about the descents down diamantina and bon accord (from hotham) and even though it took a long time to do both (60mins for 3.5km diamantina) i got the feeling my downhill skills are improving.
mile for mile i think this is harder than b2h.
just narlier terrain/harder to run on, less support, less flat bits.
twas fun though :)