More Friends, More Trails, More Mountains

After learning so much over the past few years and seeing there was still a lot in store, I wanted to start 2015 focusing on seeing new places, but enjoying the entire experience and trying to get every opportunity to run with the great people I'd met through SCTR. I'd started running 10km time trials on Thursdays at lunch, making use of the showers and the awesome water front course I could cover in the hour break. My speed work was coming along well and on my first 10km tempo for 2015 I managed to finally break the 40 minute barrier. I think I owe a lot of this to the Bulletproof legs program I'd been following since December which gave me a lot of additional strength and agility through advanced plyometrics. I wanted to keep pushing these tempo sessions out each week and see where it took me, with a long run on the weekend and maybe a weekly night run thrown in for good measure.

I was lucky to have met some incredible people and run with them and I was determined to make sure I made the most of that by incorporating more social runs into my training. I hit up Werribee Gorge for the Wild Wombat Fat Ass and managed to get in 3 laps out there, which is a lot tougher than I expected. Each lap was about 13km with around 700m elevation gain and the third lap I cut out the extension to drop it back to 7km with around 300m. Great to be out there again with friends and smashing some big hills, especially with my running buddy back from her NZ success (very jealous of how awesome those trails looked over there!)

I was also keen to keep getting out to some of the trails I'd ventured to less and getting some friends down on my local trails. Ran an awesome flat-ish 50km with Erin on the local rail trail, helping her hit a sub 5 hour 50, smashed some more hills in Lerderderg and more trails out in the Brisbane Ranges - one of my favourite places to run for something different, like a blend between Lerderderg and the You Yangs. The SCTR night runs kicked off again (such an awesome event every month with great people) and the inaugural SCTR Top Gun Run (in the You Yangs, synchronised with the big jets flying over for the Air Show at Avalon) was great fun as well. Even managed a little very early morning excursion to take a bunch of friends out to show them the Wonderland course in the Grampians which was an incredible experience for us all.

I'd signed up for the Razorback Run 64km Skyrun in March and while I hadn't been following any strict training program, the weekly routine of a solid tempo (or faster) with a night run and a solid long run seemed to be working well for me. The new style of training was also keeping me in a good head space, particularly with great company out on the trails and so many amazing places to explore with them. After another decent 5 hour drive. car pooling with Chris (the Surf Goat) again, we reached rego, had a meal and signed up, just like GOW but even more casual.

Everything felt good and came together nicely, including a decent night's sleep. I'd remembered to cut the caffeine and had No Doz in my pack just in case I started to get sleepy again. I paced myself well from the start, taking it nice and easy, content to just finish it feeling good (and certainly not after a repeat of my GOW effort). I had a great chat to a woman on the way up to Feathertop who had done the climb quite a few times. She pointed out a usual spot where there is often a snake but assured me that you can just throw rocks at them or jump over them - I hoped she'd be there on the way back!

After reaching Feathertop at the end of the first main 11km climb, I had two main climbs left of roughly 5km and 2km each. From then on it was undulating hills and gentler climbs before the final descent back into Harrietsville. The race went really well fully self supported. I stopped to drink from every mountain stream (because it's a freaking mountain stream!) and enjoyed the incredibly unique landscape that this area of the Victorian Alps had to offer.

By the first and only aid station at 43km, I'd been out running (well, mostly walking) for 7 hours and 20 minutes and had 21km to cover in 2 hours and 40 minutes if I was to hit my goal of a 10 hour time - seemed unlikely. I wasn't too fussed about time though, and after a cup and a half of Pepsi to pick me up (yay caffeine!) I was off along the Razorback then to the final descent. I had two good spills along that stretch, the first a fortunate stumble and roll, but the second gave me some nice cuts but nothing worth stopping for.

Finally reaching the descent back to Harrietsville I decided to approach it carefully as it was fairly steep. I ran well, focusing on lifting my feet and holding a good pace under 5 min/kms, then stopping for a quick break every 2km or so. I hit the bottom just as the bladder in my pack ran out of water and I shuffled back in to the caravan park. I finished in 9 hours and 54 minutes, ahead of goal time - the final 21km contained no major climbs and with reasonable legs it is practically all runnable. It had been an awesome race with some tough climbs, but they weren't as crazy as Buffalo and pacing them well meant you could moving through without hurting too much.

I was surprised by how different it was from my previous venture up this way to Mount Buffalo, but both were incredibly beautiful in their own right and amazing experiences to have had. Finishing this race I felt I'd hit my sweet spot for training, pacing and getting the most out of a tough run without putting myself in a bad way. Now if I could take that and build on it, that could open up a lot of bigger, tougher runs, hopefully without killing my passion for trail running. Definitely keeping out there with great people is key and in SCTR we are incredibly lucky to have so many to join us out there.