GNW 2010 - The final battle

For what it's worth, here's a quick summary of my 3rd GNW experience that I posted on CR and then some additional thoughts....

Nice steady and easy start along the road, but it was obviously noticeably hot and humid, even at 6am! Immediately fell into my hydration and nutrition plan and as we entered the dirt was hovering around just behind Blue Dog and in front of Horrie with Robin C also there. Took it very easy on the climbs up to the first peak and enjoyed the descent down to Freemans Gap, runnign for a little while with the girl from Singapore. The climb up to Heaton was tougher than I had previously experienced and so I eased up looking to regroup at the top. Enjoyed the gradual downhill to the water tank and entered the rainforest section. Immediately noticed how more humid it was in there, at one point I swear my breath was condensing on exhales. I was also very slipperly through here and there was a group of us (including Kelvin, Graham and Horrie) that sort of hung loosely together, a few wrong turns from the front guys keeping us grouped. The climb up to the hitching post was brutal and I was starting to struggle here and could not get going, starting to get nausea and a few dry retches. I was really looking forward to CP1 but struggled in and was concerned as to how the rest of the day would unfold.

Took quite a while in CP1 to recover, for a while I was not certain that I'd even go back out, but after a rest, some cool drinks and a change of shirt and shoes I felt re-energised. I actually felt quite good along the ridge to Barraba and caught a few people, including ERB and Hermie, but being very careful to taking it easy. ERB and I started the descent down to Congewai Rd, but I eased up a little as we went down starting to feel nausea again. Near the gate I caught up to Brick and we rolled down the rest of the descent. As soon as we hit the road it was like someone hit a switch and I was violently ill, quite a few times. I caught up to Brick and we opted just to walk it out to CP2. A few km along another runner (a girl but cant remember her name) caught us and then shortly after Hermie also caught us. I was starting to flag again and so I opted to ease up further and they kept going. After a little hill I was really struggling to even walk and feeling faint. In the distance I saw a car and umbrella and it was Steve, who was doing some photo's. I got there and sat under the umbrella for a while hoping to clear the head, but instead had another massive vomit attack down to repeated dry retches, ie nothing left....

That was enough for me, knowing what was in store immediately after CP2 and that I was already dehydrated and unable to digest/keep down any fluids it would have been sheer folly to go on and looking at the results it looks like a number of runners had to pull out through that next leg, not making CP3. After 3 unsuccessful attempts at GNW, I've decided to pull up stumps. Clearly my strength is not in dealing with high heat and humidity and with GNW scheduled when it is means it will always be a roll of the dice on weather conditions for me to perform to my expectations. To exorcise the demons properly I may decide to have a solo effort over the course, but in the middle of the year.

So I have contemplated this a little further and still think it best to set aside trying to do GNW while ever it is in November. Amazingly the weather immediately after was much more temperate. So time to get refocussed, not like last year where I dilly dallyed around until mid January for Six Foot prep. This year is my buckle year and I'm revved up for a big run. Actually just under 16 weeks to go so perfect time for a additional base build up. I've had a little break last week and am ready to go, but will have acrack at my new Half Marathon PB this Sunday on what has been described to me as a pancake flat course at The Entrance. After that I'm aiming for a big December, not much on in terms of races so just solid prep.

Did a run with the Striders 6ft traiing grou[ last Saturday on the Equaliser course and felt good, really hammering the climbs and then backed up for the 30km STaR on Sunday at Barrenjoey and again ran well, probably so well that I really should be thinking about moving to the 6:20 group as I well and truly dropped people like Sharpie and Alex on the last big climb near Avalon, who I struggled to keep up with 2 months ago!

The blog is going to get a little mini make-over to keep me even more focussed on the build up for 6 ft....