Hares and Hounds
This last week has been spent holidaying at Brunswick Heads and exploring the North Coast of NSW. O.M.Gosh! Beautiful and what an incredible time! Without making you all jealous, it was ripper! As a reminder, some of you might remember I lined up for Hares and Hounds before the holiday....well here is a little recap...Well, you think I would have learnt by now but the week leading up to Hares and Hounds (taper week), I got sick. I got a terrible dry cough and kept me awake for the four nights leading up to the race. This in turn obviously made me tired, as well as ‘lung tired’ but otherwise not too bad. For those who don't know, tapering is what you do leading up to a race, backing off your training and getting your body fresh for the big day. My tapers these days are pretty short however what I believe happens (not necessarily scientifically proven, just experiential) is that when I back off from large volumes of training, my body relaxes, along with my immune system, opening me up to sickness. Very incontinent. Anyway, no excuses, I still planned on having a good whack at my 4hr 30min goal just for the fun of it! We rocked up to the race and camped out with friends. Dave then happened to inform me that the course had changed and was a fair bit harder. Probably would have helped if I studied the course before hand ay?! Anyway, this, and being not 100% health wise had me re-thinking my goals. All that said, I got a little sleep the night before after a fun dinner out with Jason, Anna, Dave, Vanessa, Mum, Dad and my crew and woke at 2am ready for a 3am start. We were off and moving before long and I settled into pace with my mate Rod from Rocky. We were going a little faster than I planned but felt ok due to it being dark, cool and still able to converse, and CONVERSE we did! We had a lot of catching up to do. We pretty much stayed together till half way (apart from one little void) where we turned around and head for home. By this time the sun had come up and we were still moving well. At about the 35k mark I began to feel a little strain on my lungs from all the coughing but kept moving ok. Leading up to the 40k mark, Rod kept setting the pace and I was hanging on by a thread. In one section along the macadamia farm we were doing sub 5min pace and I was JUST hangin on. Not long after this, I really started battling for about 8k. I did all I could to hang with Rod and was super stoked for his company but he eventually surged ahead. I did my best to keep moving forward as quick as I could but was losing time. From reasonably early on and after some calculations it looked like I could still hit a decent sub 5hr pace for the 52k but this also seemed to be fading quickly. I struggled through the final few k’s, doing all I could and ran in, hurting. I experienced some decent dizziness and headaches during the race, even though I was well and truly on top of my nutrition and fluids. I think this may just have been due to the sickness. All that being said, I finished in a time of 4hr 59min (unofficial) and was overall really happy with how I ran. It was a completely different course, harder and much more beautiful. I really enjoyed the course. I managed to get pipped at the line by my buddy from the Coast Ben but many props to him, he finished strong. Rod finished a bit before me, dad struggled a bit but my hero of the day was Dave who ran amazingly and finished second, even after taking a slight wrong turn. I said it to him personally and Ill say it now, if he puts his head down, focuses, trains hard and rips in, with some experience, he is going to be a great trail ultra runner. It is an honour to know and be mates with such a humble, lovely guy. As usual at Hares and Hounds, it finished with a swim, a good feed and many laughs. I love my trail dirtbag family so very much and particularly Jason and Anna who helped with the kids and came out, just to hang, even when they weren’t racing. Much love. Thanks to mum too who helped out with my gear at the half way. Other props to Luna Sandals, Ultimate Direction and my girl Nike running shorts. Gold! Another race done and dusted and more lessons learnt. A beautiful, tough day at the office but one I wouldn't trade in an instant. Much love all, get out in nature, run trails and go vegan. Plant power for the win! Namaste!