A marathon, an ultra and a hike

Slaty Creek, Goldfields Trail

After a bit of a break from organised races, four months actually, I returned to the race scene with the Bush Capital Bush Marathon at the end of July. I've always liked this one so when I received an email about it just a few days before I was sorely tempted to do it even though I had a race lined up for the following weekend. I was on my way home from the Heysen hike when I got the email just five days before the marathon. I rationalised my participation by deciding I should have a practice at running an ultra soon after a long hike, when I hadn't done much running. Like I'll need to do at my birthday race in September. I wanted to have the confidence to know that I can run after I’ve been hiking. Denis agreed to come to Canberra with me in my nice red car.

It was a beautiful day, foggy at the start and cold. (This was my seventh time at this race and I've always had good weather.) I had expended serious energy on Saturday evening debating whether to wear shorts with calf socks or tights and had decided to go with tights. On the start line I already realised I'd made the wrong decision. Lucky I always wear shorts over my tights.

I set out at my usual pace and settled in for a fun time. The fog hung in globs over parts of the city and elsewhere was a wonderful blue sky. The bush was as usual really pretty although I only saw a few kangaroos. I aimed to run the hills on the first lap at least and reassess on the second. It all felt comfortingly familiar. The only thing different was that I didn't see fruit cake at the aid stations and I’ve always loved the fruit cake.

At the end of the first lap I really had to go to the toilet and wanted to remove my tights. I was slightly irritated at this as I had just passed another female runner after trying to do so for a long time, but to my relief she visited the toilet too.

I managed to run all of the second half also. I passed a small number of people. I was surprised how comfortable I felt and I picked up the pace for the last five kms. As I ran through the finish chute the organiser yelled something which I didn't catch. Then while I was putting on my trackies they started the women's prize giving. I came third!

A week later I lined up for the ultra that I had planned for more than just a few days ahead. 

Some mixed feelings about this 50 km ultra at Dunkeld in the southern Grampians. I like a bit of climbing but I don’t like descents, especially when the terrain is rough and runners are bombing down while I’m going up. It's hard to avoid this when I run at the back of the field and there’s an out and back course. My recent hiking seems to have cost me even more of my running speed although on the plus side it must have helped with my walking speed. I was going uphill really well yesterday. On the flat I was sluggish and on the downhill I was like a beginner.

The marshals at this race were wonderful: enthusiastic and complimentary. And also an awful lot of them. There was no published map of the race route at all, which is really unusual, like I didn’t even know if it was a loop or an out and back etc but the signage and number of marshals meant there were no navigational issues. Most of them were in place for a major part of the day and had made little bonfires to keep warm; it was cute and meant that whenever I could see smoke I knew I was approaching a marshal. At the aid stations there was sometimes a whole group of them having a good time.

The race route was a slightly curious mix of interesting peaks and long flattish sections of dirt tracks. Well, not flat, slightly undulating, and the undulations were more pronounced later on in the day on the way home. Funny, that. Some of the lowland stuff was nice, across grassland and through woodland.  Some of the time we were on official walking trails and sometimes on private untracked land. I saw one kangaroo. 

The three peaks, Sturgeon, Picanniny and Abrupt, offered fantastic views and each is rated a reasonable day walk in its own right. But I always think the best thing about the Grampians is the shape of the mountains themselves and the way they rise so suddenly from the landscape rather than the views you get from the tops.

The route up Mt Sturgeon was the roughest; several kilometres of uneven and irregularly spaced small rocks which made the going slow. The runners ahead of me hurtled back down at amazing speed and I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage this but I liked the climb up. The climb came about 13 km into the run and I knew I was fairly near the back (I always am) but I was pleased to see on my way down that there were a fair few runners behind me. And then as I gingerly made my way down lots of people whom I thought were far behind me started to pass me. I became very bad tempered. Unfortunately I forgot why I do these races. Even though it doesn’t matter in the slightest I hate to be confronted by my ineptitude. Not that I’m inept. But I need to remind myself of this.

The other climbs were not as rough. The short climb up Picanniny was on a smooth track. The climb up Mt Abruot was the longest with several rocky staircases and sheer rock slabs to ascend. As with Mt Sturgeon, you realise about two thirds of the way up that you aren’t yet climbing the main peak and your goal is actually off to one side in the distance where you can see a line of colourful ants ascending. But a mid-climb marshal made my day by saying as I came past her on my way down You’ve come back quickly. I made up some of my lost time on the descent and the people I passed on my way up did not pass me on my descent. Yay!

When I got back to the flats I knew I had to knuckle down and get this thing finished, with 16 kilometres to go. I barely saw another runner except at the aid stations. I was running empty and self talk kept me on track. I don’t think I was drinking enough but I enjoyed the food, especially the hedgehog slice; they had big boxes of individually wrapped pieces of homemade muesli slice and hedgehog slice at all the aid stations. That was a new one on me.

The main feature of the final kilometres was an amicable rivalry I had with another runner. There was a woman, considerably younger than me, who had passed me right at the start. After we came down Picanniny and ran a long dirt road I noticed she was the runner immediately in front of me, but by quite some way. I passed her right near the top of Mt Abrupt. About five km from the finish she caught up with me but didn’t want to go past. I was struggling and eventually she came past. We played cat and mouse for a while then she got ahead. I honestly didn’t mind at all. But half a kilometre before the end we had to go through some mud and she slowed so much that I passed her. I finished ten seconds ahead. I think if she hadn’t been there I could easily have finished five or ten minutes later. 

I had hoped to break seven hours but I didn’t quite manage it, finishing in 7:09. But setting a goal would have been rather arbitrary anyway as I didn’t know what the course was like.

Three days after this it was time to hike another section of the Goldfields Trail, from Ballarat to Cresswick. I didn't want to go so soon after the race but that day had the best weather forecast. Still, it was freezing cold when I got off the train in Ballarat.

The hike of about 26 kms was pleasant enough but not amazing. Almost all in forest with no views. It undulated along creeks and crossed hillsides. I was surprised to see people in some odd places, possibly panning for gold, and one campsite was busy - in the middle of winter. There were a lot of muddy patches but no rain. I saw a few parrots and heard kookaburras. The forest was an absolute maze of tracks and trails but the route signage was perfect, barely a single junction without a sign.

Slaty Creek was the prettiest part, very clear water and trickling gently in the heart of the forest. What was a shame was that there was a flooded causeway across Slaty Creek not far out of Cresswick and I got wet feet; they remained wet and cold right until I got home.

I’m not sure I’ve been to Cresswick before; it had some nice Victorian buildings and a wide main street. I had a quick coffee, pleased to find a cafe open after 4pm, and then walked to the station. When I looked at the timetable I was surprised to see that there was no train scheduled until tomorrow even though I had a ticket in my hand for a train at 4.58 pm. Would I be spending the night in Cresswick?

With a phone call I established that there was an imminently departing bus to Ballarat so I rushed off to find the bus stop. I was dismayed to see on the timetable that I had missed the bus by four minutes, but as I pondered this the bus pulled up. Lucky for me it was running late and it zipped through its other stops at great speed. It was still cold when I got back to Ballarat but I would get home ok.