Although it’s a few weeks late for writing a review of the previous year, the announcement of Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc places also makes it quite timely.

2014 really was all about qualifying for the UTMB. They announced early in the year that the qualifying points had been raised from 7 to 8. And it’s always been from three races. With my point from TNF 50 in 2013, I could have just(?) done two three-pointers to qualify, but the increased point meant I’d need to do a four-pointer or just do an additional two-pointer.

Things went well enough in that regard - I felt I did myself justice in the North Face 100 given how unwell I was for the previous 10 days (I wasn’t that sure that I wouldn’t give up after 5km but I was feeling good so carried on). After that a friend’s bad luck turned into my luck as a Kokoda place fell into my lap. And then I finished it off with the Glasshouse 100km for the final two points.

Sadly, qualification isn’t the same as getting in, and I was unlucky in the draw. I also didn’t know that to transfer to the Tour de Savoie, I’d have to immediately transfer without awaiting further instructions. But now I have double chances for the next draw (failed previous entrants get two ‘tickets’ in the following year) and guaranteed the year after that (although I’d have to qualify again - my points only carry over for one year)

2014 Highlights

• 2257 km of running (400km more than 2013, my previous record)
• 237 hours - 55 more than 2013
• 48,888m of elevation - more than double 2013. (according to Strava)
• My first 100km run. And second. And third.
• Qualification for Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc
• My fastest half marathon and marathon
• A 14km race that was faster per km than my 10km PB.
• Personal bests at the Pinnacles, Lake Manchester
• Personal bests at Sandgate and Bunyaville parkruns

2014 Lowlights

• Achilles niggle meant I had to take January easy (I did 180km but almost zero elevation)
• Worst cold in years prior to the North Face 100 - no running in the previous 10 days and I wasn’t sure how my chest would affect my race. It might not have done too much harm.
• Knee tendonopathy going into Kokoda
• Calf strain following Sandgate Sunset run meant I didn’t run most for much of a month.

Plans for 2015

With Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc not an option this year, I’ll concentrate on remaining qualified and enjoying running and racing with friends. I’d like to continue to increase my elevation - less kms but more vertical gain is perfectly acceptable. With that in mind I’m likely to do more trail races and fewer road races (for example Nerang 50km and Twilight Half clash this year, so I’ll probably do the former).

After repacking my drop bags the night before, I went to bed a little after 10pm, with my phone telling me the alarm was due to go off in less than six hours. But at least what sleep I had was sound, and at 3:45am my alarm went off and I got up and dressed, had breakfast, woke Peta as I was dropping her off for some pre-dawn photography, and was ready to leave as planned at 4:15.

After I’d said goodbye to Peta and dropped her off, the drive to Beerburrum for the start of the race was pretty uneventful, and I was there by 5am, ready to register, weigh in, drop my drop bags in the appropriate spot and then hang out with my running friends before the start.

There was an impromptu Brisbane Trail runner photo that we had so much fun with that we completely missed the countdown to the start, and the first we knew was that everyone had started running! Oh well, a couple of seconds didn’t make any difference over the course of the day.

For a brief period we had our Kokoda team all together in one spot, with Loz entering the full 100 mile race and the other three of us doing the 100km. I wonder how many Kokoda teams have all four members complete both Kokoda and Glasshouse 100.

The next couple of hours went really well. At times I found other people’s energy levels a bit overwhelming — I love the peace and quiet of trail running and loud enthusiastic conversation about NRL is not my thing at 6am! I quickly found my own space, and then Brad and I ran together for a good while — we know each other well enough that I can run with Brad for as long as I can keep up! Up to the top of Beerburrum — perhaps the steepest concrete path I’ve ever walked, with great views out to the Mooloolaba coast and to the surrounding hills. I lost Brad for a bit as he went for it downhill, but caught up with him as we arrived at Checkpoint 3 together and he let me lead the pace for a while. We stayed together pretty much to Checkpoint 4, at which point Brad said “I’m going to push on through this one, I’ll see you later”. I had a 5 minute stop refilling bottles and sorting my stuff out, and that was the last I saw of Brad until the end!

Things got trickier from here as we ascended the back of the Glass Mountains Lookout hill - but it wasn’t as bad as I remember it from the last couple of years 50km races and it wasn’t long before I arrived at Checkpoint 5. A quick top up of my camelbak and then onwards to the Cauldron. Not quite sure how it went so badly, for some reason I recall thinking I’d overestimated it the last couple of times I’d done it but this time I must have underestimated it — it seemed to go on forever, down the valleys and back up the other side, and each time I thought I must be nearly done, but no, more yet. Finally I escaped, feeling pretty tired, and I don’t think I ran many continuous kilometres from here on in. The day was heating up, although it wasn’t yet 10am, and that definitely didn’t help.

The next sections were fairly exposed — long fire trails reaching out into the distance. I thought these might be the infamous powerlines, but they were actually a little later. They still went on for quite a while! Checkpoint 6 was the half way point by my watch and I made it in 6:15. I had hopes at this point that I wouldn’t be muc slower in the second half, and that thirteen hours might still be on the cards.

Things didn’t get any better for a couple of hours really — the dirt bikes and 4x4s really did my head in when we crossed paths (again, I like the peace and tranquility of trail running). Some of the 4x4s just before the powerlines sections were idiots — they knew we were coming and still set off down the hills we were coming up. Still, we escaped unscathed. I don’t remember much about the powerlines other than it seeming quite a long way when looking out over it. It didn’t seem too bad, but I seem to have forgotten most of it!

After a quick stop at Checkpoint 8 (checkpoint 7 comes later) it was onto the 8 west loop. I was struggling to maintain any kind of pace even going downhill, but at least I kept moving, and drinking. As I finished the lumpy part and moved onto the rail trail, I started to build up a bit more momentum and here my run walk strategy started in earnest, as I realised that maintaining 7km/h would keep me under 14 hours and 8km/h would get me in nearer to 13. My goal with each km was to aim for under 7:30. This meant that I would happily walk for a bit if I was doing 9km/h and keep running.

One excellent piece of advice I read recently was to ask yourself honestly ‘would it be any more difficult to run?’. A lot of the time I was walking, it was because I was struggling to keep within my limits — elevated heart rate and heavy breathing rapidly told me to slow down, often after as little as 200m of running. As the day went on and it got cooler, that distance between running got shorter and the runs became longer. But asking that question regularly meant that I started running again sooner than I perhaps might if I hadn’t considered it. And later, some of my blisters meant that it was actually less painful to run than to walk!

After the long climb back up to Checkpoint 8, I refilled my camelbak with ice and water, and topped up my flasks, and headed onwards. A nice downhill section meant some sub-6 minute kms, the first for hours, and then half a dozen easy flat kms to Checkpoint 7. At some point on this section I bumped into Elmer for the first time since the start. He was struggling a little with ITB problems, but he was keeping positive and staying strong. I was sorry to see him suffering but his spirit was good. We chatted a little and then I pushed on as I was feeling stronger and stronger. I had a longer stop at this checkpoint to change socks, put on blister plasters and get some more ice in my camelbak. I probably loaded a bit too much for a 5km loop, but it seemed necessary. I did have the presence of mind to leave some of kit behind at least.

After a few hundred metres I saw Elmer ahead of me again as he’d had a much more efficient stop, but it took an age to catch him again. When I finally caught him I said he was looking much stronger — he’d left his pack at the checkpoint and was just carrying water — a wise move. We chatted a bit more and then I pushed on once more, feeling great.

The finish of the 7 loop was my last opportunity to raid my drop bag and refill everything ready for the 24km push to the finish — from here I didn’t want to have to refill anything if need be. The route back to checkpoint 5 took in some of the sections I found so tricky earlier — the 4x4 tracks and the long exposed fire trails, but the cloud cover was good and I managed to maintain my planned 8km/h. At checkpoint 6 I had a cup of coke (I’d had at least one cup of coke for the past 5 stops I think!). After checkpoint 5 it was looking like I’d be done in 12h45. Peta was coming by train to collect me based on me finishing in 14 hours, so I rang her to let her know that I should be finished early and to not worry about coming up. All the raspberry (caffienated) tailwind that I’d been drinking for half the day might have helped too — I felt very much awake.

I thoroughly enjoyed 89km-95km — the long downhill on the road from the Glasshouse Mountains lookout, then the gentle downhill fire trail to the bottom of Tibberoowuccan, it was all so runnable. Kilometre 90 was the first sub-6 km since 62. Again, just a matter of maintaining a sensible pace where possible — not overdoing it even on the easier stuff, but not wanting to waste time either. Especially as it was getting darker now.

I wasn’t really too sure what the last section was. On the 50km race, we’d always done the Trachyte circuit as the last 5km, and I thought it might be that, but the end of the 100km is the same as the first 5km but in reverse. Much easier to run, but less interesting. I got a bit confused in spite of the fact that the route is basically running along a path next to the Steve Irwin Way, but there were no obvious route markers. With it being dark I wasn’t 100% sure I was on the right track, and I hadn’t seen any of the posts I remembered from the way out. Indeed I started running back the other way, convinced I must have gone wrong. Luckily I quickly bumped into runners and I asked them if this was the right way, they confirmed it was, and shortly after that I saw the posts, and more runners coming the other way — I was so close to not having had to run the wrong way!

A bit more walking and one of the two runners that I’d bumped into had enough left to finish very strongly, the other overtook me — I said well done, and he said ‘not much left now’ or words to that effect and I thought ‘he’s right, let’s just do this’ and with that I took off up the hill, over the bridge over the railway, past the park and into the school to clapping and cheers and it was done. My third 100km race of 2014, in the official time of 12:36:00.

Geoff and Trish helped me to find the hot drinks (I made myself ultra tea in my new finishers mug — only one more colour for me to collect now) and then I caught up with Brad who’d had a fantastic run to finish in 12:11, running with Trish for the latter 50km in her first ever trail race, where she was second female! I was happy with my 21st place overall. I felt that I triumped by running to the conditions in the middle third. My central governor system wouldn’t let me run hard, and that probably saved me and allowed me to run well for the final third.

I had to leave in the end without one of my drop bags, so thanks to Chrissy for picking it up for me.

It’s now Wednesday and I had my first run since Saturday — 11km on Sandgate foreshore, which felt reasonable. Considering doing Twilight Bay 10km on Saturday — not sure I’ll do a PB but it’s my only remaining chance to try in 2014!

Writing this has helped to ensure that everything is in the right place for tomorrow. One could probably argue I carry too much stuff, but I like to be safe and prepared, and relatively self-sufficient.

Tomorrow will be my first experience with dropbags, so I’ve tried to ensure stuff will be in the right place.

Even writing this I realised that my understanding of where the checkpoints wasn’t quite right (I thought that 4 and 7 were one-third and two-thirds around the course, rather than one-quarter and three-quarters), so I’ve just added a second drop bag for checkpoint 8, that I’ll now have to go and pack.

Backpack

• mini anti-chafe
• 2 x 500 tailwind + 1l water
• tailwind powder x 3
• survival bag
• bandage
• compeed
• food bar
• phone + bag
• sunglasses
• cap
• arm warmers
• rain jacket
• small torch

Drop bag 1 (marked with name and 4/7) — 24.7km, 71.5km, 75.9km

• anti-chafe
• tailwind powder x 6
• funnel
• compeed
• backup headlamp
• spare socks
• buff, fleece
• food bar

Drop Bag 2 (marked with name and 8) — 53.2km, 64km

• sunscreen
• headlamp
• compeed
• tailwind powder x 4
• funnel
• food bar
• spare socks

Bag for car

• spare clothes
• towel
• shoes

My expectations for this race were reasonable but not amazing. I had high hopes of getting a personal best, but also knew that it wasn’t a given. The conditions in 2012 were great, and my training was very marathon focused. This year my training has been for 100km trail races, and it’s only 2 weeks since I spent over 20 hours on a properly tough course. But I did well at City 2 South not that long after the North Face 100, and marathon predictions from that result suggest I’m capable of around 3:20. Being capable and achieving it are two different things! And then there’s my knee — it can cope with running, but would it hold out for the full 42.2km?

My alarm went off at 03:45 this morning. Because I wanted to have coffee and breakfast and not leave it too late to get to my pre-booked parking ($5 is a bargain, but the roads close at 05:15), plus leave time for congestion, the goal was to leave home at 04:15. Peta wanted a lift to Shorncliffe Pier for some dawn photography, so by the time I left Sandgate it was 04:25. But with almost zero traffic until 100m from my car park, there wasn’t much to worry about, and I was heading for the bag drop by 05:00. While driving in I had some energy drink, as last year I really suffered from low energy at around the 25km mark.

By Brisbane standards, this morning was pretty cool (8°C) — I definitely appreciated wearing long sleeves and long legs over my race gear. By 05:30 I was feeling warm enough to get out of the outer layers, put on my race number (which because it was transferred late, said “David”), apply sufficient anti-chafing strategies and sunscreen and drop off my bag.

On the way to the start I bumped into Dean and Vanessa who run Sandgate Parkrun. I’d picked up their race kits the previous day as they were busy filming Sesame Street (how cool is that?) so stopped to say hello and see how they were feeling. By the time we were heading to the start it was 05:50.

My starting zone was full. Properly full. In the end I managed to squeeze into the very rear of the zone, but in hindsight, I should have just gone forward a zone and tried to go backwards to the start of my zone. I really wanted to avoid the bottleneck at Story Bridge, which meant getting a good start for the first 3km, but it wasn’t to be. In the end I just went with the flow (I think a similar thing happened in 2012, and I got a PB then), and settled into a pace that was a little slower than I’d have liked but at that stage of the race there’s no point going off too fast.

I had a great run. Once I got past the bottlenecks I was running 4:45/km pace for a lot of the first half. My goal was to limit my exertion so that I would feel strong at the 32km point when I think the marathon really starts. Conditions were almost ideal: cool, slightly overcast, slight breeze (ok, quite windy at times, but never too bad).

I tried to avoid the mistakes of the previous year when I sprinted down the Go Between Bridge and then started to blow up shortly after. Or when I ran out of energy at the 25km point because I’d had nothing since breakfast. And then borrowed a gel and then had stomach issues.

This year my exertion rate was fairly constant (i.e. if I was going uphill then I was going more slowly) and I had Clif Shot Bloks every 5km (although I forgot the last one, but that probably didn’t make much difference)

While running around, many of the crowd were cheering “Go David”. I’m a big believer in the power of crowd support (only when things are going well — when things are going terribly, people telling you “You can do it”, “It’s not that far” aren’t providing as much benefit as they might hope) and so I always like to acknowledge the support. So I just waved and thanked people who called me David (or Dave). Whenever I heard “Go Will” was always a pleasant surprise, but there were a few people running or supporting who actually knew me! As an aside, while I believe that people are only allowed to say “Not far to go” in the last km or two, the person who told me at 300m to go that it was only 2km to go was no more helpful. I knew how much I had left as this was my third time but had I been a new runner to the course I’d have got quite disheartened!

By about the 30km point, when I had 12km left to go, I thought that anything quicker than 5:00/km would take that amount off a 3:25 finish, so I was hoping for around 3:23 at this point, if I could maintain 4:50/km for the remainder of the race. I must have got my calculations wrong because I didn’t go much slower than 4:55/km — perhaps I’d forgotten the final 200m. Sums are hard when you’re running!

The last 6km were particularly tough, after I’d crossed the river at the Go Between Bridge again, and headed on the out and back to Toowong. The temperature was rising and there is no shade. My knee wasn’t too bad but I wonder if my gait was slightly out of alignment as I could feel tightness in my hips. In the end I just carried on, trying to maintain as much pace as possible. I dropped below 5:00/km once in the race, but once I got to the 41km mark I knew I had about six minutes left and upped the tempo, which felt great. Why didn’t I do that earlier!

I finished in 3:25:11, a PB by just under 5 minutes (my previous PB was 3:30:07). I’m definitely happy with that. I do believe I’m capable of going faster if the marathon was my key race, rather than doing it on the back of 100km training. Also, there are conditions that would suit me better, such as if it had stayed cooler during the day, but those conditions don’t really happen very often in Queensland!

I didn’t quite make the top 10% but I was 62 out of 515. Full splits and results for me.

Oh, and you know you’re an ultrarunner when someone asks you “so tomorrow’s race is 100km?” and you reply “oh no, it’s only 42km”.

Note: this post has taken nearly two weeks to complete and so there are some lapses of memory. Apologies if I skipped anything important! This is another of my posts that likely requires a cup of tea.

My journey to the Kokoda Challenge and beyond was a rocky one for many of those involved.

For those who don’t know, the Kokoda Challenge is a 96km trail walk or run in the Gold Coast hinterlands, where teams of four attempt to get from one end to the other, taking in 5000m of vertical ascent over the course. You can’t start with less than four people, and if two team members drop out, you need to join up with another pair before you’re allowed to continue.

I’d had discussions about joining a team early this year, but as the North Face was my primary goal race for the year, I wanted to make no commitments beyond that. Other teams were formed and I had good fun running with Aaron and Brad — they were doing their Kokoda training and I was doing my North Face training.

Unfortunately at the same time I did TNF, Aaron developed a very nasty knee problem that prevented him running for weeks. While thankfully he’s slowly easing back into running he had to withdraw, and I was the logical substitute — I was trained for the distance (I’d eased off a little after TNF but otherwise fighting fit) and keen to join the team.

Over the last few weeks of training, I too managed to pick up a knee niggle. I took a few days off running and went to see a physio, who told me that it would be tough even with a good knee, but that he’d strap it, recommend some rolling and stretching exercises, and I could go back to running. He suggested I might want my strapping changed before the race, but as I could barely get up the step onto the train when the strapping was first on as it was so tight, I figured I’d just keep the strapping I had.

So, I was strapped, trained, prepared for the course and ready to go. And at 5pm on the day before the race, they changed the course. Rather than a nice gentle 20km followed by some tough hills and then a really tough last 50km, we were to do the last 50km as an out and back. Double trouble. Additionally, the route change added an extra 3km to make it 99km in total.

Due to a bush fire on the route we were taking, the organisers nearly had to cancel the race — apparently at 3pm on the day before the race, there was no race. By 5pm they had worked with the Rural Fire Service, police, State Emergency Service to agree on a safe course.

Some frantic rescheduling of pickup times occurred, but by 9pm I was fully packed, prepared, and ready for bed, at which point I had a great sleep until about 2:30am (before a 4:10am alarm call) and then tossed and turned trying to get to the right temperature and having vivid dreams that it was 7am and I’d completley missed the start (yeah, the usual pre-race jitters).

When the alarm actually went off, I quickly put on all my warm clothes, had coffee, breakfast, and was ready when Shayne arrived at 4:45 as planned. A quick trip to pick up Kerno and Brad and then we were off to Nerang velodrome for the new race start.

We passed the time for the next couple of hours sorting various bits out — race registration, slowly getting out of warm clothes into the starting kit, chatting to fellow runners — it was early but it didn’t drag too badly, and we were soon ready to head to the start, after a few photo opportunities (including one where I was the only 1 of 12 across the three Brisbane Trail Runner teams not wearing a BTR top).

The start itself was preceded by an explanation of the previous day’s events leading to the near cancellation of the race, and also stories from veterans of the Kokoda track defence — reminding us that no matter how bad it got, at least no-one was in danger of being shot at. After a minute’s silence and the Last Post, the school teams doing the full course set off. A couple of minutes after that we were off too!

We took it nice and steady for the first few kms, taking in the terrain as it slowly rose. We passed and were passed by other teams as the pecking order slowly established itself. There were some groups with some annoyingly loud people that because of how little pace varies uphill, stayed close to us for longer than I’d have liked — I took off at one point picking up the pace a little too much — the team followed but at that stage it was a little unnecessary. At the top of a descent Phil stopped — I thought he’d take a quick break and I’d carry on, but by the bottom of the hill I realised he wasn’t behind me. After a while I realised I should go back to find him. I passed a few groups who let me know he was on his way (so at least I didn’t have to go back up the hill) but it was a while until Phil reappeared. His water bladder had broken and he was unable to get water out of it but had come up with a solution.

We carried on together to the first checkpoint where Loz and Brad had already checked in — we must have been five minutes later checking in which didn’t go down too well given you’re not supposed to be more than 100m apart.

We pushed on and here our first problems started. At the 10km point, a pink ribbon was missed. As a team we bear collective responsibility for the following 3km when we ran without seeing another pink ribbon (to my shame I didn’t even notice — I was merrily following along like a sheep). At this point Phil mentioned to me that he hadn’t seen a ribbon for a while and we bumped into some trail bikers who hadn’t seen anyone else. We were just about to ascend one of the steeper hills of the Nerang course and thankfully avoided going any further. We headed back, collecting all the other teams who’d blindly followed us and got back to the 10km point — an additional 6km!

We were all fuming at this point — we had so many team lapses — some people had spotted the ribbon but thought it must be for the way back, some people were too far ahead to even discuss this with, and some people hadn’t even noticed the lack of ribbons. It took me a good 15km from here before I stopped being annoyed with myself.

At this point we’d done 16km and were now behind people who had done around 10km, and so we had to overtake those people all over again. Thankfully most people were fairly gracious about this (there were probably a lot of people wondering where all these fast people suddenly came from).

Just before the 3 hour mark we finally got to what was officially called the 18km checkpoint (24km by our route). I say we, but again Loz got here well before us (in fact in between us and the other men’s BTR team). Here, Shayne and Josh, Danica and Lachlon could look after us for a bit. Already I needed some blister patches for the soles of my feet, but other than that I just needed to calm down a little. Brad tried another of many attempts to persuade Loz that we should all run together, as this was a team event…

After the first checkpoint came the first monster hill up to Beechmont plateau. Like a lot of the hills in this race, it really was just a matter of putting one pole in front of another (I was so grateful for my poles — I used them for the whole 100+km) and following that with one foot and then another. We bumped into our Brisbane Trail Runner compatriots from the other team. Kerno was really suffering — he’d had massive cramps and fallen over as a result, and was just struggling to keep moving upward. But he did, slowly but surely. We got out of the worst of the hill onto the road, where we expected Loz to be waiting for us (he’d long since left us for dust) but we didn’t see him until we actually summitted the hill.

Phil was struggling with downhills by this point, but here at least we had some flats and the downhills we did have were gentle, so were able to put in some runs for a while before we got to Syd Duncan Park and took some more refreshments on board.

From Syd Duncan it was a long, slow descent into army land. It was dusty, loose, rocky and at one point I was attempting to use my poles as if skiing down the slope because running wasn’t much use. Because Phil was struggling down hill, and I was wary of descending too fast and further inflaming my knee tendons, we were actually descending slower than we were ascending!

Once into army land it was pretty cushy — the creek crossings were very easy — while it was possible to get wet feet if not careful, you could walk through most of the creeks that weren’t dry and the water wouldn’t go above the sole of the shoe. At the 40km point we got to the army land checkpoint (Three Ways) where they kindly pointed out to us it was only 5km to the next checkpoint. I’d seen the profile though. So, 5km, uphill.

Again, another long uphill trudge. No real dramas, we were all capable of good speed uphill, catching up with and overtaking other groups. It was here that we first saw the 48km Jim Stillman cup participants who at this point had got to their 15km point. As we got further uphill, we were struggling to acknowledge and reciprocate every ‘Well done’, ‘You’re doing well’ but we did try our best — certainly I wouldn’t have contemplated doing a 48km run or even unbroken walk at that age. Brad, Phil and I took it in turns to lead the uphill stroll and thus be in charge of greetings acknowledgement!

Shortly after the top of the hill, it plateaued and then a couple of gentle kms and we were at the official 38km checkpoint. We picked up lights, a bit more cooler weather gear, had some minor snacks and minor first aid (not me this time — the blister plasters I put on at 24km lasted the remaining 82km).

From this checkpoint it was a couple of kms across fields and muddy bog and then it was down, down and down. We passed some very tired looking teams — two of a group of teenage girls seemed to have given up at this point. They were actually very near the top, relative to the rest of the climb, but I didn’t realise just how much down we had still to go. From a profile point of view, it was obvious — we had to lose 500m of altitude but what that translates into in reality can be quite shocking. Steep dusty slope followed steep dusty slope — because we weren’t running downhill any more we just took our time, and I used my poles for balance, or to push me around corners, or to take load off my legs, anything to make it slightly easier to descend.

Finally at the bottom it was an easy run across the bridge over the Nerang River and then to the next checkpoint at Numinbah Environment Centre. We didn’t stop here long — check in and then onwards. Uphill and then downhill, pretty unmemorable now, until finally we got to the pipes that took us under the road to Numinbah Hall. Here we did stop a while — Phil got a very effective looking massage, I fully topped up with water (and drank a couple of cups, realising quite how thirsty I was). Also had a bite of my chocolate chip bar, and put my fluoro top and light on at last, as the sun had already set and it was only going to get darker from here. We were on the return path after 55.5km and 9 hours.

As before, the run between the Hall and Environment Centre was pretty unmemorable, other than being awkward for the number of people now coming the other way. I do remember feeling grateful and sorry for the guys manning the road crossings — always cheerful and generous with their support, it’s a long effort for them. Again, we passed through the Environment Centre pretty quickly onto the next section, probably the toughest of the day.

In my mind, the run up to the 60km checkpoint was three Camp Mountains (a run up Camp Mountain takes about quarter of an hour per km and is 200m in ascent, so it’s pretty close). Again, one pole in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, count down the kms. After 2kms, we started to go down, and although I knew there was a kink in the hill, I really started to believe that perhaps we were nearer the top than I thought — after all, it was only 2km to the checkpoint and surely most of that was fields? And then we turned a corner, and saw a string of lights descending a very big hill and realised that was the third Camp Mountain. Although the track was narrow and dusty, we managed to get up it at the same time all those people were coming down, and eventually we got to the top.

At the bog bridge, there were so many people coming the other way that in the end Phil just shouted across the bridge to stop and let us through. Graciously the other direction paused as we came through (they really didn’t have any other way of knowing, the traffic was that bad), even apologising for holding us up in our cooler running kit while they were decked out for walking over night. And then it was the trek across the fields again and we were at the checkpoint.

Dinner! I had made chicken soup a few weeks before in preparation, and macaroni the night before, and it turns out that chicken soup and macaroni was exactly what I wanted. I also made sure I had all the colder weather gear I was likely to need, as Danica was reporting that the temperature could go down to 1C. I hadn’t brought a spare top but Phil lent me one so that I had a dry one, and also put on my arm warmers. It was at this point that I lost it a little with Loz — he was ready to leave and I was just slowly getting my stuff together to get going and he said something that made me just tell him to shut the f*** up. Apparently Danica was surprised even to hear me swear, but even though me swearing is not that rare, me swearing at people is. I was not feeling 100% happy with Loz.

The plateau from the 60km checkpoint was probably the last running we did until the end, as Phil’s knees just weren’t feeling good on the flat or the downhills now (not that there was that much flat to be had). After a couple of kms, my light started to die (after just three hours of use) and we started making the descent into the depths of army land, another seemingly interminable descent. It was at this stage that Loz seemed to have completely lost the plot, shouting into the breeze — wasn’t really doing any harm but I preferred the tranquility of nothingness. Apparently too much cola was to blame!

But we got to the Three Ways checkpoint again, and didn’t really stop long (although Loz lent me his spare battery here, which really helped me to not feel blind). Then back across the creek crossings, before the ascent back up to Beechmont Plateau. From here to the end we were much more of a team, sticking together as a four, which made me a lot happier.

We were ascending really well (of all the things that we were doing, relative to how you’d expect us to be doing, our ascending was the strongest) and so it was another long upward strong trudge to the top before we returned to Syd Duncan park. At this point I was getting cold from the wind, and so time for my windjacket. I was wondering if I had enough warm clothes but I still had an additional fleece layer if I really needed it, along with a buff, gloves and armwarmers that I was still wearing under my jacket.

After Syd Duncan there was the long haul along the roads which felt pretty dull (although slightly helped by some kind supporters handing out Freddos and Caramello Koalas along the way) before the final long descent of the day (there would be further descents, but none anywhere near as long) down from Beechmont to Little Clagiraba. It seemed that we saw the lights of the checkpoint hours before we got there, and the dusty bit of track that traverses the slope was particularly nasty, but we got there in the end. At this checkpoint Geoff from the support crew for the other men’s BTR team told us that the remaining two members of that team were just about to come in. And I got a bit grumpy with him for even mentioning the other team, worrying that it would cause Loz to hurry off so that we could beat them. I am very sorry for being grumpy to Geoff who was just checking if we could go with them if they needed us to make up the numbers (a team of two can’t continue on its own until it has joined with another group). In the end they didn’t need us and beat us to the line by an hour.

And then more dinner! After eating I went a bit crazy and put on a few too many warm clothes (something I’d been ribbing Brad for doing earlier on in the day). At the checkpoint I had on my buff to cover my ears and neck, and also put my gloves on. Soon after we took off I was boiling and it was time to remove gloves and arm warmers and I got back to a sensible temperature. One last reasonable size hill to cover and we were back to the 10km point where it had all gone so wrong earlier in the day. From there through the 8km to go checkpoint, up the ludicrously steep hill where Phil had stopped at the top early on, and then up and mostly down for the next 8km.

At 18km to go we’d hoped to go sub 20 hours, which was still possible if we could do 6km/h for the next three hours. And I have to say we made a valiant effort — we powered up the hills but just weren’t making the necessary time up on the flats or downhills to quite do sub 20.

The final checkpoint at 4km to go was a surprise, as there hadn’t been one on the way out. We checked in and out and they confirmed that we had just 4km left to do. But that still meant nearly an hour of travelling. At the time it felt ridiculous how much hard work we had to do — another hour still!

Slowly but surely we got to the end. Tiredness was seeping in (it had gone 4am with 2km to go) and my borrowed light had faded and I was onto my original backup torch. Then we hit 1km to go, and it suddenly started to feel manageable — just five lots of 200m! We kept going, and then we could see the lights and hear the sounds of the velodrome. We kept on walking until with 50m to go I asked if everyone felt able to run across the line. And we did, together.

Across the line we were given our souvenirs — a certificate and finishing dog tags. We had our photos taken, and caught up with other friends who’d finished, including new friends like Elmer, a guy I’d never met but had bumped into as our teams crossed paths a few times before they’d gone on to finish in 19:15, a fantastic time.

But our team was whole. Much as many times during the day I felt like stabbing Loz with a pole, I was happy that we’d finished as a four. We didn’t make our time goals, but adding 6km on to our route hadn’t helped with that either. I was pleased that we’d managed to dig ourselves out of the collective funk associated with going wrong and pressed on. None of us ever mentioned quitting and as far as I know, none of us considered it either.

I made some personal stuff ups. I should have been more attentive to our route finding. I should have brought a spare top (I had one for North Face but that was a warmer top — a drier top would have done) and I don’t know what went wrong with my headtorch but when travelling with poles a spare handtorch is not sufficient. Either take a spare battery or a spare headtorch.

I would like to thank the organisers for rescuing the race and the volunteers who made it all happen — registration and checkpoint staff, road crossing marshals, emergency services and everyone else.

All the Brisbane Trail Runners who participated or crewed, well done. Two of the three teams made it across the line in one piece, and 10 out of twelve isn’t bad. Sorry Kerno didn’t make it the whole way but given how he was doing at 30km, getting to 60km was a brave effort. And thanks to him for helping organise all the fundraising and the BTRs in general.

Congratulations to my running team, Brad, Phil and Loz — it’s great that we all succeeded in beating the Kokoda Challenge.

Our crew was awesome. Shayne and Josh, Danica and Lachlon, you sacrificed so much time, energy and resources into looking after us. Shayne even helped sort people’s feet out. I hope if I ever crew, I do somewhere near as good a job.

On reflection, our team did quite well. Only 34% of teams finished as a four. We came 23rd out of 375 teams doing the full “96km”. I was always worried how I’d do running with a team as there are so many things that can go wrong — you can end up being the slow one, there could be someone undertrained holding you up — and so our team did well on that score.

One more thing — after doing the Kokoda Challenge I was curious to learn more about the Kokoda campaign during World War II. I ended up reading Peter FitzSimons’ Kokoda, a well written account describing the horrors of war with tragic unnecessary wastes of young lives, and the triumph of mateship and hard graft in spite of inadequate leadership.

My GPS died at 102km — we did 105km in the end.

On 19th July, at 7am, I will be joining a team of three other runners to do the Kokoda Challenge, a 96km trail race through the Gold Coast hinterland. The hinterland is not flat - there is around 5000m of elevation gain over the course, and the elevation profile has some very mean looking sections - this race promises to be no easier than the North Face, and the team has to remain within 150m for the whole 96km.

The money raised is for the Kokoda Youth Foundation, who run the Kokoda Challenge Youth Program, a program that aims to help Australian teens get out and active and working together to complete some great accomplishments - to me it is akin to supporting young people who couldn’t necessarily afford it to do the Australian equivalent of a Duke of Edinburgh award.

Please consider sponsoring me - if you’re in Australia, it’s nearly tax time, and you can beam with pride when the accountant asks you what donations you’ve made. If you’re in the UK, you’ll be amazed when you donate some Australian dollars just how few UK pounds it actually costs - $25 is less than £15 at the moment!

You can sponsor us on our team donation page. Apologies that I don’t yet appear in the team photo on the team page - I was a last minute substitution as one of the other team members is sadly too injured to run.

I fancied a change of pace recently and signed up for the 14km City 2 South race - it’s quite new but well received last year, and not too pricey with the easily found online discount (got my last minute entry down to the early bird price).

I hadn’t really specifically trained for it (I got chatting to a sales assistant at the race expo, who asked me if I’d been training, and what was the furthest I’d run - I think my honest replies convinced her I was ready for it!) but except for the Tuesday before the race, which was two days after my Camp Mountain marathon, when my quads were still shot, I felt I was running well enough.

In terms of goals, I had Twilight Half Marathon and last year’s Bridge to Brisbane to set expectations - I knew I wasn’t 100% fit for B2B so figured I should theoretically do around the same pace - 4:30/km and be able to do quicker than Twilight which was 4:45/km. So I was thinking 63 minutes would be a good target, and even getting under 70 wouldn’t be too embarrassing as I really wasn’t sure whether I was ready for fast efforts following The North Face and the accompanying cold.

I got to the race in good time - about half an hour before the start, which meant I could get right to the start of my wave, which was the second to leave. The first wave left at 7am, and we left at 7:05. I was a bit worried about congestion so I made sure I kept near the front of the wave without going out too hard. Once I was a km in I made sure my breathing felt right and concentrated on settling in to a sustainable rhythm.

The first 11km or so is relatively flat with the odd lump here and there, which kept it interesting, I concentrated on not “burning too many matches”, to use Matt Fitzgerald’s metaphor from Iron War, and trying to keep a consistent level of effort.

Around UQ I seemed to catch up with the back of the red wave, so it got a bit annoying for the next couple of kms with lots of weaving around people. But I was still running well and happy, but with the knowledge that I needed to save myself for the last 3km too.

Once back across the river, the climb started from Dutton Park to the top of Highgate Hill. All the trail running training really helped here as I was able to pass quite a lot of people, and was 149th fastest for the uphill section. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capitalise as well on the downhill section, where I was 402nd fastest, and lost 17 places.

One flaw in my race execution was that my watch was saying 13.7km at the end, so I hadn’t realised how little I had left to do - I was saving myself for the last 300m that didn’t exist.

Over the line in 1:00:10, 279th out of 3827, an average pace of 04:23/km. According to McMillan’s running calculator, extrapolating that to a 15km time of 1:05, that time predicts a 3:17 marathon and a 1:33 half. Both of which would be massive PBs.

My training regime has not been at all focused since The North Face, and other than hill training, very little of my training would have had much impact on speed.

Two things that are worth bearing in mind - 10 hour training weeks leads to weight loss without much thinking about diet - and I haven’t really gained much weight in the last month. And the weather is perfect for running at the moment - it’s a little chilly in the mornings and evenings. Tonight, the day after the race, I did a 53 minute 11km, which is much faster than I usually manage. But with a cool evening temperature, there’s no need to stop for water, breathing is easy, and sub 5:00/km is comfortable for me.

I’ll be having a week off running from Friday - I’m not taking my running kit away for our wedding anniversary. Wednesday will be the usual trail run, and I might do some Kangaroo Point steps on Thursday to maintain an edge.

I’m loving running right now, so many things I want to achieve. But that will be a separate post.

Introduction

This post is quite long, worthy of the race it reports. Grab a cup of tea, sit down, and read on… Mostly written on Tuesday and finished off with pictures on Sunday.

Race report

After my inauspicious lead-up to the race, I continued the non-training bits of race preparation as best I could, sorting out my energy drink sachets so that I had 16 bags with 50g each (thankfully I didn’t have to explain the baggies of white powder at airport security), packing my race kit and supporting my support crew.

This was my first race where Peta was supporting in a participatory sense, doing more than cheering (or writing encouraging messages in chalk on the Ironman run in Zurich!). I wasn’t totally sure what I would need, but wrote some checklists for each checkpoint including location, estimated time of arrival and what things I might need. This allowed me to defer decisions such as whether I’d need a change of shoes at checkpoint 4 or 5 (or, as it turns out, at all). I could also give Peta a funnel to fill my bottles with powder, and carry warm clothes for later, and give me the food I’d prepared. All in all the checklists were pretty successful.

Also in the build up to the race, I found the Unofficial North Face 100 Training page on Facebook, which led me to a great blog including preparation tips including the checklists idea.

I still wasn’t feeling 100% better on the Friday, and I found the slight incline from the parking to registration at the race start really affected my breathing. However, it was also very cold, and I was suffering a little from pre-race nerves.

Race registration, for me, in 2014, was amazingly efficient. I got to registration at 7pm and by 7:02 I was registered and by 7:04 I had the goodie bag. Unfortunately I then had to stick around another 30 minutes until compulsory race briefing which started late and ran long. I should have grabbed a seat before it started as my legs were sore during the night following an hour standing. I would complain more but the Welcome from the traditional owners was very moving and I wouldn’t have missed that for anything. The lovely elderly woman who thanked us for coming and loving the land was truly touching (and perhaps more generous than deserved given the amount of race litter I saw, only some of which I had the energy to pick up and take out with me).

After registration I went home, we finished cooking dinner, ate, and once I felt that everything that needed to be done was done, I went to bed. I slept well for the first half and then I got hot and my leg was very painful — I was half convinced I might have deep vein thrombosis or something — but whatever it was, I never felt it after I started running.

Parking at the start wasn’t great, but we didn’t have to park too far away, and got to the start in plenty of time. Although I miscounted the wave starts and thought the third was yet to go when mine was 2 minutes from starting — I wasn’t as ready as I’d have liked at that point, but sorted myself out in time.

There was always a doubt in my mind that I might make no further in the race than the first 5km, which was an out and back where if I was feeling truly dreadful still, then would be the time to withdraw. The out and back was pretty enjoyable for an uphill slog (followed by a downhill slog I suppose) — we drove the same route on Tuesday morning and I thought “Wow, I ran (ok, walked) this”. Great views, fun times, lots of early camaraderie.

Back at Scenic World, Peta had picked a great spot to stand — I could see her a few hundred metres away and give her a big wave to warn her I was on my way and to have the camera ready. I stopped for a quick kiss and to let her know I was feeling good and was running well, which was a nice surprise for me too.

Down the Furber steps we went, the steps taking their toll on my quads, and then along the Federal Pass, past the landslide (where things got a bit slow and queuey) and then to the bottom of Golden Steps. These steps were probably the toughest of the day for me as I’d yet to learn how to deal with them, but the answer was to take more breaks, and sooner. My lung capacity due to my cold was not 100%, and that meant that it was easy to over do it. On all later uphill stairs, I did stop often and never felt quite so out of breath.

Still, once at the top it was a quick jaunt to the first checkpoint, where I refilled bottles and camelbak. Signal wasn’t good enough to send a text to Peta, which I should have done anyway — I didn’t realise until the next checkpoint that the online tracker never showed me arriving at checkpoint one, and people were starting to get concerned back home!

I had my one stack of the day where I tripped on some hidden obstacle and went flying. Thankfully it was mostly sand/dirt road, and I had nothing more than a graze or two and some wounded pride. A young American woman who I’d just passed stopped to make sure I was ok, and then we ran for quite a while chatting happily, which is always unexpected and pleasant. I let her go on at the 20km point so I could take a 20km selfie! Shortly after the 20km point we had the Taros ladders. Chatting to another American lady later, if you were in a later wave the queues were bad and the detour was horrific, so I was very pleased to get to the ladders with only a few people in the queue — it was perfectly fine for me, the benefits of getting a good starting wave.

From Taros to Checkpoint 2 seems utterly unmemorable now — there were lots of steps down where I felt uneasy, and very worried about later steps if I felt that wobbly there, but it turns out I recovered fine later on — I was probably still feeling Furber steps!

At Checkpoint 2 I let Peta know I was doing fine (in fact I was pretty much bang on ETA) refilled everything I needed to refill, ready for the next 15km stage. The route to Checkpoint 3 was much more memorable. The hike up to Ironpot ridge looked horribly steep, but wasn’t actually as bad as it looked — Chainsaw on Camp Mountain is the same steepness, but the path is straight up it, whereas this path zigzagged. Along Ironpot Ridge we came across King David who’d given us the welcome the night before, playing his clack sticks, with some friends playing the didgeredoo, and they were very friendly and encouraging (only 65km to go! — yeah, thanks!). The run down from Ironpot ridge was probably the worst section of the race for me — completely did my knees in and might have contributed to how bad I felt for the last 20km. It was basically a steep and dusty downhill, very tough on the legs.

After the joys of Ironpot ridge, we had the fun of the rise up to Checkpoint 3. This was a hill that rose for 5km. I wasn’t convinced I was actually going to run any of the last half of this leg at all, but after that long 5km it flattened off and then went downhill, so I actually managed some quickish kms (it was also the middle of the day so there was a little bit of run/walk too, not to mention stops to get crap out of my shoe!) to get to Checkpoint 3. The gear check was a little bit of a faff, as I had to get my fleece out of my stuff sack, but I totally understand the point of it, so I just treated it like a mandatory rest!

I had written instructions for Peta at Checkpoint 3, but only to be used if I was running at least two hours late — in the end I was bang on time. This was to save her the hassle of in my mind an unnecessary burden — it was only 11km to the next checkpoint with an expected time for the leg of two hours. I’m still very happy with this decision — it probably gave Peta more than two hours back of her day and I was still feeling great at this point. I knew any leg that was suggested as taking 2 hours for 11km wasn’t going to be easy, but then again, not much of the course is!

Onwards to Checkpoint 4 along the Six Foot Track, and here I met what turned out to be a great race friend, who saw me trying ineptly to take a 50km selfie and said ‘if you wait 30 seconds, I’ll take it for you’, and did so. After that we ran together for quite a bit, and also bumped into another of his running club mates, Erika, who was also very kind — she heard me coughing and offered me her inhaler — she took the offer back when I told her it was my cold, but it was really nice of her. Both Peter and Erika really helped me mentally get up Nellies Glen, which is the step-filled trudge back up from the valley to Katoomba. I saw Peter quite often for the rest of the race, until he went flying past me on the descent from Kedumba around the 85km mark — he finished half an hour before me in the end, which given his performance on uphill and downhill (I was quicker on the flat, which was no help for the last 20km!) was deserved.

After Nellies Glen, it wasn’t too far to get to Checkpoint 4 — Peta was again well placed to spot me, and she saw me before I saw her for some more photos. Unfortunately neither of us knew that she’d have to take a very long route into the sports centre to be able to support me, but in the end it just meant I had a couple of minutes extra rest — and I was out again in 10 minutes or so, much quicker than the two people who left at the same time as me and started talking about their 25 minute luxury stop! Together Peta and I sorted out filling bottles, feeding me, checking off the checklist. My new running friend Peter had given me a top tip, which was to try and get down Giant Stairway before dark. So I didn’t hang around — Peta and I got a bit confused when she said ‘See you at 5’ (meaning the checkpoint) and I said ‘that’s only an hour, I’m going to take four!’ but we quickly worked that out!

The next stage of the run was the bit of the North Face 50 from last year that I’d really struggled with. I was convinced the race director was a sadist and put as many stairs into the section as possible. This year, my frame of mind was very different — I’d trained for stairs, I accepted it as very much a key part of the North Face race, and was ready for it. And I felt happier and easier doing the stairs this year than last year, even though I’d run 20km further at that point. Sure, I forgot about blocks of stairs but I never found myself particularly annoyed by them.

At some point on the stairs, we came across a cockatoo, just standing on a step. I said “Hello Cocky!”, to which he/she replied “Hello!”. So of course I had to say hello again. Presumably it’d either escaped from a family or had just learned to say hello on the trails, but it wasn’t at all bothered by all these trail runners going past!

It was great to stop at the 66km water stop, where I was well looked after by Steph, a three year old, who helped fill my camelbak (with the help of her mum).

After a couple more kms, I was convinced I must have passed the Fairmont and was ahead of schedule, so I texted Peta to let her know this crucial fact. Ten minutes later, I realised we’d just reached Sublime Point Road, and I was probably about on time, so I texted Peta to cancel the crucial fact. I’d likely have been more on time for the checkpoint if I hadn’t spent all that time texting! Still, I made the best of the steps down from the Fairmont, and it seemed to be a long and wiggly and windy path to Wentworth Falls, but I got there in the end, and crossed the falls for what I expected to be a long and lengthy climb back up to Kings Tableland, but it was nowhere near as bad as I expected, and it was all relatively straightforward. I walked with Peter while the path still tracked uphill, but once we got onto the roads, and it started going downhill, I set off, determined to be as on time as I could — it was a run/walk combo, but I was still definitely running at times!

Checkpoint 5 was a bit of a nightmare — I messed up filling one of my bottles, and filled it with energy drink rather than water. I also needed to pick up my mandatory fleece. I decided to change my top in case I got cold too. I did get cold for a few minutes in the next section but I’d have been better off keeping my original short sleeved top as I was too hot at times in the next section, and only ever slightly cold briefly. Amazingly the breezes coming out of the valley were warmer than the rest of the air (we’d been warned to expect cold breezes, which seems a sensible warning most of the time!)

And then almost 10km downhill. In 2013, that 10km took me about 50 minutes. This year I was a lot slower — about 90 minutes, because I was no longer comfortably able to run downhill — my knees and my quads were just not willing to suffer in silence. I was actually happier going uphill — it was slower, of course, but I felt like I was making as good progress this year as last year.

The distance between the 90km marker and the supposed 91km water point seemed enormous but at that point everything was a walk, uphill, and thus taking nearly 15 minutes to do a kilometre. I could hear people around me complain about the length of the hill, but I was at peace with it — it was a long trudge but I preferred it to the succeeding flatter section. After the climb came the clearing, and then upwards again to Federal Pass, which felt pretty comfortable. The run through Leura Forest felt fine but I really slowed further for the last 5kms — I was stuck behind some people but really didn’t have anything left in my legs to want to overtake.

Finally I got to the Furber Steps and tried to text Peta. But no signal. So I proceeded up the steps, and then tried again. No luck. A bit further, I tried again — still no signal. Higher up, I received a text from Peta, so I stopped and tried again. In the end, I got to pretty much the top and called Peta to warn her I was on the home stretch. So, top tip for any TNF 100k-ers — make better arrangements to meet at the finish. I’m not sure what else I could have done, because I was much slower over the last 5km than I expected, but at least I might have known not to bother trying any earlier. Still, I needed some rest stops on the way up, but probably not quite that many.

And then I was walking up the boardwalk to Scenic World, and saw a sign saying last 5 steps, and so started running — I bounded up the steps, and then finished strong nearly across the line, pausing slightly to let Peta take a photo, and then crossed into her arms. After some uncertainty about what happens next, I went to collect my medal, and bumped into Peter on his way out, so it was great to find out how he’d done. I then had the best chicken soup I’d ever had (another top tip — have chicken soup as a meal — the meal I prepared myself was very stodgy and unappealing). Peta then drove me home, ran me a jacuzzi and opened the bottle of fizz that we had in the fridge, and all was good with the world. I also took the opportunity while the jacuzzi was being run to catch up on all the vast amount of good wishes that people had left on Facebook, it was lovely to feel so well supported.

100kms in 17:51, about 40 minutes slower than the first four checkpoints suggested I should manage, and certainly I did feel like the wheels fell off a little in the final stage (although I actually picked up 8 places), but well within the 20 hour cutoff for bronze buckle, and significantly under the 28 hour cutoff for the race. I earned my 4th wave start position (45-60th percentile) with last years North Face 50, and I believe I justified it with this year’s North Face 100 (456th out of over 1000 entrants — I don’t know yet how many actually started)

Kit

• Bamboo technical top (Royal Parks Half 2010 finishers top — my most visible top for Peta’s benefit) until CP5
• Gore Running long sleeve with mitten cuffs — good for the first 2km when I was cold and my hands were wet after the checkpoint, too hot afterwards. Should have just worn running gloves for a couple of ks.
• Ronhill shorts with just a little inside flap as a pocket — didn’t think I needed pockets given my backpack but they’d have been good to keep e.g. gloves in.
• Salomon Crossmax shoes — probably one of their last runs — they’ve done over 500km since I started tracking my shoes at the start of the year, it’s probably nearer 1000km in their lifetime. And even Peta thinks they look like they need replacing.
• Salomon S-Lab 12. Gets rave reviews, barely moves on the body, has excellent front pockets for bottles. But has wire reinforcement that really digs in, and a stupid front securing mechanism needing to connect or disconnect 4 different clasps everytime you want to take it off or put it on. And while it is 12L, some of that only works if you put everything in a stuff sack, which is awkward for gear checks. I think I’ll be replacing it and hoping for a good price on ebay (I hope noone reads this before buying it!)
• X-Socks marathon. Great, although perhaps a little short for this event as grit got in too easily — but so so comfortable on the feet.
• Neutrogena Beach Defense spray on sun protection. Allows me to sweat with it on, which beats most sun cream.
• Skin slather lube. I had no chafing where I used this, and it quickly resolved where I missed using it.
• I was pleased with my nutrition/hydration choice. I’m not at all affiliated with Tailwind Nutrition, but their product works for me — I had something like thirteen out of the sixteen planned pouches. I did get a bit peckish around the 70km mark, and had a Boost. I also had a little of my sausage and potato food, but really not very much. It was easier to keep on top of the required amount of Tailwind when it was warmer — probably the 70km flagging was because I had only drank half the amount I should have from the 56km checkpoint. But I think chicken soup at Checkpoints 4 and 5 would have gone down well.

Post race thoughts

I don’t feel the need to do that particular 100km again, although I’ll never say never. If I thought I could get a silver buckle to go with my new bronze buckle, I might, but shaving nearly four hours off my time seems near impossible. There are so many great races to do that would be difficult to do in the same year that I also want to do — Tarawera and Cradle Mountain being two off the top of my head. And I’d also like to try some of the other Blue Mountain races, such as Mount Solitary or the Six Foot Track.

On North Face 100 preparation, aside from my cold, which may well have been a blessing in that I was definitely well rested and couldn’t go too hard early on (I felt much better later in the day, perhaps after I’d cleared myself out), there are some things I’d suggest. Very steep downhill training (I can only think Chainsaw) but that has its own risks — either of falling or just damaging knees in the practice. More step walking. I did plenty of stair running (it’s probably impossible to do too much but I felt I did enough) but specifically downstairs walking, preferably with unevenness. Also more downhill running training — the 10km from Queen Victoria Hospital to Jamison Creek could have felt easier.

Other race top tips. Wear gaiters. The amount of time I spent getting crap out of my shoes was probably getting towards 10 minutes. And grit got in the top of my socks and rubbed the tops of my feet such that I’m wearing blister plasters there now.

Peta and I worked out the support strategy quite well for a first time. Having spare bottles and camelbak would have meant we could just do bottle swaps rather than me having to fill them (supporters weren’t allowed near the water). And the 99km texting was a lesson hard learned, that I should have realised given the paucity of the GPS signal down there, but no regrets.

Unlike in the 50 last year, where I swore to give up trail running, this year I felt happy and confident the whole way through. I never felt like I would need to give up (although how difficult I found the first stair climb gave me some cause for concern, and my legs felt a bit shaky on some of the technical downhills around the Taros steps, and I worried that they’d feel worse later, but neither worry was serious nor, in hindsight, warranted!). I don’t recall many races where I felt so capable!

 Acknowledgements

Thanks to Peta for providing the middle ground of being suitably cautious about my crazy ideas, but going along for the ride once convinced. Her support on the day and indeed the days afterwards has been invaluable. We’re going to have many more adventures together, and more holidays in the Blue Mountains where I can actually do some decent walking with her!

I would like to thank the traditional owners of the area for their heartfelt welcome and the work they do to conserve the land for generations to come.

The organisation of the 2014 North Face seemed even better than usual (I think the change of venue helped them) — it was well marked, everything was smooth (except perhaps the direction at the finish, but when I did ask what to do next, they were very helpful). I think Tom and Alina and everyone involved do a fantastic job. I’d like to particularly thank everyone who volunteered their time as marshals, at checkpoints, and start and finish.

My new friends I made on the race — I’ll probably never meet them again but Peter and Erika from Sydney Striders, Charlene who made sure I was ok after my fall, Ariane who helped me sort my light out and the other people with whom I walked the slow climb from Leura Valley, whose names I never knew, it was still great!

The Bunyaville Trail Runners have been a great set of training buddies — so thanks to Grant for doing a great job organising it, and to everyone on the weekly runs, plus particular thanks to everyone who’s gone on a long training run with me — Aaron, Paul, Brad, Stuart. Oh, and a big thanks to Shayne for his valuable mantra ‘Trust in your training’ which spoken by him sounds like an instruction from a Jedi Master.

This year most of my social running has been with my trail buddies, and I’ve had to neglect my parkrun friends to concentrate on longer things (and avoid the risk of injury from short sharp runs!). I’m looking forward to going back and seeing everyone, and I’d like to thank Brendan Smith, a fellow endurance runner who’s just come back from doing two marathons in China (including a ten hour effort on the Great Wall — lest anyone think he’s a slacker, the winner did it in six!) who said ‘Bragging rights are forever’, another helpful mantra for my run, and much more positive than drug cheat Armstrong’s ‘Quitting is forever’.

Thanks to everyone who liked or commented on Peta’s updates on Facebook — the tracking that Peta did was more up to date and accurate than the official timings, and she was able to let me know how much everyone was cheering me on. And I did really enjoy catching up on it all after the race, so thank you all!

Photo credits

Photos are credited in the thumbnail titles (i.e. when you hover over the images in this post):

• (Aurora) — Aurora Images
• (Peta) — Silken Photography
• (Peter) — Peter, a guy I met on the run. Don’t yet know his last name.

Uncredited photos are self-portraits by me.

My last run was now a week ago — a good variation on the usual routes at Bunyaville. My plan for Thursday was to have another go at the Kangaroo Point steps, and then 20km at the weekend for a casual 50km for the week.

I started getting more and more snuffly around lunch time on Thursday and when I coughed, it was pretty chesty. I very nearly went running in the afternoon but thought it best to leave it.

On Friday I still wasn’t terrible, but I was getting worse, and Saturday and Sunday were very coughy and raspy. Anyway, long story short, the cold itself seemed to properly kick in on Monday with the full on sneezing and sniffles and general bunged up ness. The cough hasn’t fully gone away, certainly not enough to want to risk running at this point.

I haven’t been to work all week — by this point not because I feel too unwell to work, but because I am too unwell to be in an office spreading my germs to everyone else.

I’m hoping to squeeze in some kind of run, no matter how short, in the next day or two, but I’m erring on the side of caution — I’d rather have ten days off running if it means that I’m ok to run on Saturday.

There are some positive things to take from this. I’m not injured, just ill. It’s presumably just a cold, so I should recover soon. Emil Zatopek discovered the benefits of tapering through a period just like this, and significantly beat everyone else in his race. So I could totally win the North Face 100 as a result of this downtime.

I do have to take care of my body — I’m very hopeful that I’ll be on the start line on Saturday morning, but I’m trying to avoid the risk of bronchitis or pneumonia for a race, so I’ll be making the decision to race carefully. Either way I’m sure I’ll have a wonderful time in the Blue Mountains.

April was a productive month in running terms, with lots of events specific to training for The North Face 100.

In my Fantasy North Face post, I mention a few key things I thought I needed to do to be 100km ready. One of those was normalising the distance. With that in mind I did Nerang 50km as a fantastic race tune-up run, with no specific preparation — I signed up on the Wednesday and did it on the Sunday.

I also mentioned hill training, which is what I was doing two weeks later when I ran a marathon around Camp Mountain — which was a 42.9km run with 2400m of elevation. That was also a good opportunity to test running with full race kit and test nutrition and hydration strategies.

In between those I did a nice short sharp race at the Pinnacles event.

My weekly volume has averaged on the high side — I’d planned to do 70km a week — I took a short week of just 51km the week after my 50km after Nerang, but the other weeks beat the target (by 15km in two of the other weeks!). More importantly for the North Face, I have managed nearly 8000m of ascent in April. The Pinnacles and Camp Mountain were both events that were proportional in ascent to the North Face race.

Someone asked me at the weekend if I’d lost weight (other than the haircut). I haven’t been diligently tracking but it’s probably 5kg since Christmas. I’m at my lowest weight since Ironman Zurich — around the same weight as just before Challenge Henley. My optimal race weight is probably still a few kg lighter but that’d involve sacrificing pizza and beer — which would negate the point of running in the first place, for me! So around ten hours a week of running appears to be sufficient — slightly more efficient than 18 hours a week of triathlon training.

All in all, I could feel more ready, but I’ve been pushing my body to do what I’ve felt physically and mentally capable of. Just over two weeks until the main event! This week will be another 70km week and then I’ll reduce volume and probably elevation too so that I stop feeling so bloody tired every time I run! I probably haven’t done enough steps (so I’ll run some more tomorrow) but at least this year I know what to expect and I’ve at least done plenty of uphill and downhill to strengthen the legs.

And I got my mandatory kit signed off, so that’s one less thing to do at race registration. Still going to be a busy Friday afternoon given the mandatory race briefing at 7:30pm plus registration etc.

I also went through the route for the course, looking at where the specific tough bits are. There are a few quite nasty looking bits, particularly around half way as we come out of the valley up into Katoomba. But then I thought ‘that’s not much worse than a loop of Camp Mountain, and I did eight of them in a day’.

April stats:

• Distance: 323km
• Ascent: 7918m according to Garmin — usual disclaimers apply.

It was around Monday that I first considered doing the Camp Mountain marathon on Easter Saturday. We had already planned a family gathering for Saturday lunch time, but I just needed to make pudding, turn up, eat and drink — and I could make the pudding on Good Friday.

I put the word out on Facebook to see if anyone was interested in coming along or doing a more interesting run - the reason for choosing to do 8 circuits of Camp Mountain was that it’s quite a safe trial run - you’re never really more than 2.5kms away from the car, there are people on it (although not as many as I thought - I saw one walker, one group of three mountain bikers and one solo mountain biker!). No-one was up for it but my public statement also makes it harder not to do it!

One of the objects of doing the run was a backpack trial - this was the first time I’ve used my backpack with the full mandatory North Face race kit. I was pleased to find that excluding water, the kit only weighs 2kg, with water, that can go up to 5kg - but I don’t plan to carry more than 2 litres of water at any time.

After a quick breakfast and coffee, I drove over to Camp Mountain and got ready to go, setting off on my run at about 5:55am, with the sun not yet visible behind the hills.

I knew that the day was going to be quite warm - up to 28°C at the hottest point of the day, and I didn’t want to blow up, and so my aim was to start gently and ease into it. Each part of the lap, if I thought I might need to walk it in 7 laps time, I walked on the first lap. Which meant I pretty much walked the first 1.2km. At the top I took a photo on my phone with Brisbane behind (unfortunately my proper camera was out of battery - I hadn’t charged it for a while but it was working the day before - I still lugged it round as practice weight for the rest of the run), used the facilities and then headed onwards on my downward journey to the car, where I changed into sunglasses and hat.

The next seven laps were really quite similar - I only took a photo break at the top of laps 5 and 9 (at the top of 5 I texted Peta with my estimated time of completion - I actually finished quicker than that as the second half was slightly quicker than the first). I was able to run pretty much exactly what I expected to run from the first lap. The hill was surprisingly variable - laps 5 and 6 for example were nearly a minute quicker than lap 2, and I have no explanation for it! By laps 7 and 8 the temperature was probably having an effect, but only on the uphill - the downhill section remained comfortable. Occasionally I had to stop to get rid of the odd stone or twig from my shoes.

However, as the graph below shows (with a row for each of the 8 laps plus the last out and back), the laps were relatively consistent - around 12 minutes for the first km, 8 minutes (unless I stopped at the top) for the second, six and a bit for the third and fourth km (except laps 6 and 8 where I did sub six for both). The fifth km is really variable, as it includes the time taken during any stops at the car to top up my bottles. I was very happy with this consistency, and indeed that my 8th lap was faster than my 2nd.

One of my concerns about the run was that I would not feel motivated to continue, but I never felt like stopping at all. By the time I completed each loop, the long downhill had given me enough recovery time to be ready to start again.

The club record for this (by the only other person to have attempted it) is pretty much bang on six hours and I did 6:15. I don’t know whether I could go 15 minutes quicker with less weight, or whether I’ll ever want to find out!

Graph of time taken per lap, split by km. The last lap is to the top of the hill and back only.