trailtom

A while back I’d thought we’d run at least some of Trailwalker. Now I just hope we can finish it without crawling too far.

On Sunday I decided to go for ‘a little run in the park’. Brisbane Forest Park, of course. So I set out again from the Gold Creek Rd car park (Brookfield), and followed the main path up towards Mt Nebo. It’d been cloudy for days leading up to Sunday, so I figured timing wasn’t an issue. Sunday, though, was gloriously sunny, with no cloud in the sky. OK, so a good test, I thought. How much could that possibly hurt?

I set off at 11.15am. The track up from Gold Creek’s a solid 2 km climb from the car park, with very little shade. The sun was hurting me already! By the time I’d walked to the top of that section, though, I was starting to get my rhythm, and as the terrain flattened out a bit, I started jogging in earnest.

I was encouraged to see so many people out on the trails this week, but slightly discouraged to see how sprightly they all looked. You be the judge, but I don’t think I was looking quite so alive!

But I carried on, and really got into the zone a little. At 10 kms I made the decision the aim for 25, so carried on along the track. When you’re running well, doing that little bit extra is always so tempting.

At the half-way mark (~13 kms along the track) I bumped into a group of Trailwalkers out training on their way up from Lake Manchester (about 10 kms further on). I say bumped into: I was sitting on the track eating handfuls of nuts as they bounded around the corner.

‘How you going?’, I said.

‘Better than you, by the looks of it!’, replied one of the team. ‘And what’s that you’re drinking, diesel?’

I was rather too knackered at that stage to think up a suitably witty response, so ate a few more nuts, drank my red cordial, and got back on my feet. Since they were heading my way, I decided to join them on their way back down the hill. We chatted for a bit, and walked at a good pace back down towards from where I’d just come.

My stash!

About 3 minutes down the track, my strength returned and my legs were telling me to run again…so, not one to argue, I bade them farewell and off I went. And then of course I had to run until I was out of sight (I mean, what more encouragement does a runner need to run than someone watching and waiting for you to stop running!), which sadly meant running uphill, something I’d been trying desperately to avoid!

But, run I did, and it felt awesome.

Around the 18 km mark I started to feel a bit exhausted, and I felt that awful pain that you never want to feel (especially when you’re 7 kms from finishing on a rocky, downhill track with no band-aids on your person)…blisters! But my trainers had never given me blisters before? Why now?

Anyway, precious little I could do about it other than stop and walk every so often, and just get on with it. All good preparation, I figured, and after reading about what the fell running champions and Bob Graham entrants endure during hill running, I really thought I should just ‘suck it up’! (And if you want to know, check out ‘Feet in the clouds‘.) So, I hobbled along, not looking especially graceful, but figuring the bell birds wouldn’t mind. That last section (the 2 km descent to the car park) seemed to go on forever, though, and the sun was burning down. And to make the 2 km descent worse was a 200 m section of steady uphill! But, I got there, and felt thoroughly amazed/shagged/aching for having done so.

The worst part, though, of that section is knowing that during the actual Trailwalker event we have to descend it to the rest area, check in, then re-ascend it…after having already walked about 80 kms! Best not to think about that right now.

All up the walk/run was excellent: 26 kms through reasonably hilly terrain (1200 m of ascent and descent overall), and in full sun.

The run profile

And getting blisters was a very good lesson for me! It seems such a simple thing, yet I know it’s one of the most frequent complaints every year in Trailwalker that renders people unable to finish. Guess at least next time I’ll take some band-aids with me!

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