Race Report - Woodford to Glenbrook

A hard event for me to resist, 25km of dirt, with an overall elevation drop. For the non locals this is conducted in the Blue Mountains, about an hours drive from the city. Given the recent training efforts no great expectations for me on this run other than to enjoy a good run in the dirt, the rain was an added bonus.

I had arranged to do a car shuffle with Kevin and Colin but got up there way too early so had a read of the paper while waiting. For some reason the guts felt a bit funny so made use of the facilities also while I was waiting. Kevin had texted to say he wasn't coming and Colin rocked up bang on time. We had to pay for both cars to get in and drove down to the finish area to drop my car off. While we were down there a couple approached us looking for the shuttle which was no where to be seen. We gave them a lift up to the start as well. As it happened they turned out to be from Capetown (Colin's old town) as well so a good chat between Glenbrook and the start in the car about the SA running scene.

Bikes everywhere at the start but we linked up with groups of Striders and CR's also waiting for the bikes to go. On time we were off and the first km or so was actually on tar. A fairly good pace early on and I settled into running in a loose group. It wasn't really group running as each uphill different people would slide past me as I controlled my pace and then on the technical downhills I'd scream past them again, lots of fun! However my guts were still giving me trouble and I was certainly jet propelled on certain sections through here.

Through the undulating 12km in pretty much the pace I was expecting and on the last steep downhill I put a gap into most of the runners I had been seesawing with and then it was a case of smooth controlled running on the predominant slightly sloping down hill. At about 20km the legs had used up the endurance I have managed to put back into them since restarting training and then I started to drift back from the people I had been running at the same pace. I was very glad to see the finish line as had pretty much had enough by then.

For sure the last 2km was a tad long, my 301 came up with 25.26km, but it did also measure one of my km splits at around 16km short as it showed a 3:10

Caught up with the usual suspects and some new faces to put names to. Flashduck and twopenny joined us in my car to get back to the various cars. Flashduck rolled her ankle very early into the dirt which must have been disappointing given she drove from Canberra to go in the race.

Overall a PB (well it was my first W2G) with 25.26km in 1:57:52, average pace of 4:40 min/km and avg HR of 167. Interesting to look back and my run on Thursday night was at a faster pace and higher avg HR, supports my thoughts that the legs died.

For interest the 5km splits according to Garmin were
5km 22:04 0:22:04 - more down than up!
10km 24:46 0:46:50 - some nasty little climbs here
15km 23:50 1:10:40 - start of the downhill
20km 21:49 1:32:29 - this was pretty fast!
25km 25:23 1:57:52 - legs fell off here, maybe also a little longer

Rest day on Monday, rhs foot/ankle continues to be mildly sore, ice tonight. Upper quads also caomplaining about all the downhill running :)