An Orange surprise

For once I was being sensible (well......sensible for me that is!)......

Spoiler alert...

I had entered the 6 Foot Track - a 45km run in the Blue Mountains on NSW which climbs and descends >1500m/1800m respectively. It was a walk I'd always wanted to do (from when I first heard about it 20 years ago) but now I'd rather run than walk, and so when I heard there was a race along the route, it was practically a no-brained to enter. Unfortunately, some Australian running friends then told me that it was the most competitive trail ultra in Australia so  I thought I should take it slightly more seriously.

An unusual course

Training for a hilly trail run in Australia isn't exactly easy in January when you're at sea level in snowy Scotland, but at least I got out and ran a bit more than I had been. The main thing that I thought might help me not embarrass myself too much, was to turn up at the race rested and not suffering from jetlag/travel exhaustion. Hence being "sensible"....ie I'd booked my flights in order to arrive a week before the run to give myself time to get used to (slightly) warmer weather and adjust my body clock. My friend Angus was going out to run the Orange marathon the morning after I arrived, so I decided that I'd go there with him, but just run one of their shorter events (the Orange Running Festival has a 5k, a 10k and a HM as well as the full one) to get my legs moving and lose some of the fluid that would have built up in my legs during the travel (going out there straight after getting off a plane would also stop me putting too much effort in and hence not recovering fully for the 6FT).

Unfortunately, the week before I travelled out, I got the news that the 6FT run was cancelled.....but not for the reasons you might think. No, not due to the risks of coronavirus transmission, nor due to the bushfires which had been rife throughout NSW and especially the Blue Mountains.....but due to all the rain which had finally put out all the fires. The amount of rain on the ravaged land had caused huge landslides and so there was no access to check some of the track, and as the run is a point to point one, there was also an issue of access roads being closed to get supplies in and runners out at the end. I didn't realise how much I'd been looking forward to taking part (despite being petrified of showing myself up) until that chance was taken away from me! 

Not much I could do about it, but as I'd been running quite well recently, it seemed a shame not to be able to get a decent run in. It's not exactly textbook, but I thought that as I was already going out to Orange, I'd email the organisers and ask if I could pay the difference in costs and step up to a longer run.....and they agreed! 

Angus happily finishing the

 10K

I was slightly regretting that decision when I saw that the marathon started at 6:30am (as it was still dark then) but at least that meant I'd get some of the distance covered before it got hot (and before I could really see what I'd let myself in for!!!).

In a turn of events....Angus had decided to drop down a distance and so they let him switch to the 10k run.

I nearly missed the start as I hadn't realised (in the dark) that the start and the finish were in two totally different places. Luckily I got there in time (and the start was delayed anyway due to some vehicles on the course). At the briefing they tried to get people into different pens graded by their intended speeds but minutes/km pace didn't mean that much to me, and we all just congregated anyway as it wasn't going to be a massive field. The announcer did freak me out slightly by saying that anyone from sea level would struggle if they didn't respect the first few kilometres as not only were they uphill overall, but we were also at 985m altitude. 

This, along with the fact that it was still rather dark and I was worried about tripping and falling over, meant my usual steady start was even more hesitant than normal. I had briefly said "Hi" to my friend Brendan (who I've met at several ultra World Champs.....and was indeed the very guy who told me how competitive the 6FT would be) before the start but he disappeared off into the night with several speedy guys and a couple of ladies (at least).

I tried to talk myself into relaxing into the run, absorbing the "undulations" and general "uphillness" of those first few miles, and not think about it being a race. It was therefore quite a surprise to find myself catching up and passing the other girls along the road. The field was very spread out - at least it was were I was running, ie I was going it solo.....but that is actually rather my norm. The road surface was quite good and the temperature ideal and I found myself quite enjoying clipping along. 

I soon passed the 5K and 10k turnarounds and must've covered about 5 miles before the sun came up. I do remember passing a guy on a climb soon after that who told me that I was looking good, to which I replied that I wondered if I'd gone off too fast (I really just work on my self confidence and internal chat!!).

First trip to the HM turnaround

Our course was slightly unusual in that we went out to the HM turnaround and then back a couple of miles before being directed off onto another loop, and would then come back to repeat the section to the HM turn before heading for home. A benefit of all these out and backs meant that you could see what was happening in the rest of the race, so the first thing I saw was that there were 4 guys running together in the leading pack as they came back towards me, with a couple of pairs not that far behind them. 

There had been 2 bikes leading these men and when one circled around to go in front of me, I reckoned it must mean that I was heading up the ladies' race. At the HM turnaround I looked at my watch to try to judge how long before I passed the next lady going the other way and figured I had a lead of about 3 minutes which did rather surprise me. As I headed back towards our extra loop turnoff I did see some of the rather rapid half marathoners coming out (they started 15minutes behind me) and some of them were flying, especially the tiny leading lady (as it turns out she ran about 77 minutes for 4th overall and was the very lady I'd picked as the probable 6FT winner). I was just thankful that none of them had passed me before I did my cut across the field into the next marathon section (we were running on the right hand side of the road, with those going in the opposite direction on the other side of the road, yet our route meant that we had to turn down a road 90° to the left, ie completely across the stream of runners)!

After about a mile and a half, I suddenly came to the end of the tarmac and continued on along the gravel road. I had been warned that there was a little bit of the course that was "unsealed" but it was rather more than that. The rough section lasted about 3 miles and had some sharp corners and steep ups/downs, to the extent that I actually found myself skidding and sliding with little grip (which is a bit soul destroying when you're trying to run uphill and your feet slide slightly backwards on contact with the ground). 

Soon after I was reunited with some tarmac, the lead bike came into view going the other way. The men's field had rather splintered at the sharp end and the leader had a big gap on the following three. I found it really hard to tell where I was in relation to them but I had gained two places, and by the turnaround knew my lead over the second lady was just shy of 8 minutes. I still thought I was heading for a personal detonation, having gone through halfway much quicker than I thought was maintainable, but so I thought it would be interesting to see how long this buffer would last. 

The gravel section on the return leg seemed even longer, but although I did feel that I was crawling up some of the rises (especially as that dra**ed bike just kept shooting away from me) I tried to smile, wave and acknowledge anyone running the other way (especially the guy that shouted "go on Scotland" every time he saw me, as the starter had asked if anyone was from overseas to kill time whilst they were clearing the course).

Second trip to the HM turnaround

Some people don't like an out and back course, but on this occasion I think it helped me as I could take my mind off the distance I still had to go by breaking it up into small sections that I remembered from the way out, eg to the end of the gravel, back to the HM course, out to the turnaround etc.

I thought I had been hallucinating in the early morning light earlier, but as I came back to the 90° turn to rejoin the earlier course, I realised that I hadn't been mistaken in seeing both ostriches and llamas in a field.....unless I could blame the heat by now (but actually it wasn't that hot....relatively speaking!). It was slightly odd to only have water at all of the aid stations, but I guess the time of day meant that most "normal" people wouldn't have even been up to have their breakfast yet!

Turning back onto our original course was a slight boost, as although I was feeling tired, I knew that I was now "on the run home", as long as I could just get to that last turnaround. I caught up to a half marathoner who was still on his outward run (well he was walking) but full credit to him for keeping moving as he wasn't limping/didn't seem injured and did look like a regular runner rather than a first timer.

By the time I got to the turnaround, I realised that Brendan was really having a bad day as I'd almost caught him up. Within my own race, I couldn't work out how much I was slowing myself, but relative to others I wasn't doing badly, as although one guy passed me just as we started heading back, my own gap to the second lady was now 12 minutes, which gave me a buffer of almost 2 minutes a mile in case of detonation in the last section.

Was the "lead" cyclist bored?

I'm sorry to say that the chance to reel in Brendan kept me going and I caught him at about the 21 mile mark (I can't say that I gained 6 minutes on him in the last 5 miles, as it was more that he faded by that much....no we didn't hate about it afterwards). I know they had said that the first few miles of the run were net uphill, but it certainly didn't feel like the last few were net downhill. The odd marshal was still out in the road at certain junctions and there were a few half marathoners to weave past in order to focus the concentration. Anything to take my mind off the fact that around every corner and over every hill, there seemed to be another incline. 

and relax....and smile...

Finally.....

I had wondered if I would make it back to the finish before the 10k runners came hurtling down the other side of the road towards me, so ticked off their turnaround, and then the 5k turnaround with a growing sense of satisfaction that even if they started, they'd not finish before I did. Finally, I ran up a hill and saw the tape marking where we turned off the road into the reservation. 

According to my watch it should only have been a couple of hundred metres to go from here, but they had explicitly described this section as being about 500m in the pre-run briefing, so I didn't count my chickens too soon. As the finish gantry came into sight, I heard them announcing me as the first female, and tried to pick up both my pace and the side of my mouth (ie smile) as I crossed the line. I couldn't believe the clock when I saw it....my fastest marathon for several years, and with a winning margin of over 16 minutes (though I did feel for the second and third placed ladies as their times would have seen them take out the win in previous years)!

Prizes for the larder (shame...I'd hoped

it would be wine in that region!!)

A happy podium :-)

What's more, I managed to get back to my bag, grab a drink and some fruit, squeeze in a cheeky massage whilst chatting to the male winner (on the next massage table) and get to the finish line of the 10k in time to take a photo of Angus :-) 

All in all, not a bad first weekend back in Australia even if not a textbook/sensible race plan!