We started off in a bunch of three; Jake Jackson-Grammer, Jonah Smith and I, and ran at a conservative pace along the flat, knowing what was to come. We hit the hill, I whipped out my trekking poles and we stormed on up. in the first few minutes, i made a lead of about 20 seconds, and I began to consider the possibility that something was wrong. Unfortunately Jonah had been sick recently, but Jake soon caught up. we ran together for most of the climb up to Pulpit rock, with a bit of chatting, but he pulled away when we hit the open ridge, gaining a lead of about 500m by the time we turned around to go downhill. knowing that I had some serious ground to cover, I stashed my poles in my bag and screamed down the hill.
I just almost caught Jake just as we went into the bush and past the picnic table that we were told signalled that the right turn was coming up that might be difficult to see.
Jake was just a corner or two in front of me by now, so I think we both applied the gas to try and outdo the other, unfortunately this meant that Jake missed the turn of and lost about 20 minutes going down the hill. I didn't know this, so when I turned onto the Greengage track I was going hard through what was dense undergrowth to try and catch him.
The track was among the roughest I have run, more like a possum trapping track than anything else.
I then headed up rain gauge spur and down the other side. it was a much more open track but no less ruthless and I had a fe near misses.
At this point my body realised that doing bike training (for the MTBO last weekend) doesn't prepare you ideally for a trail running race (who would have known?!) and my adductors and calves began to cramp up.
I realised when I got to the bottom that there weren't any footprints in front of me. I supposed that Jake must have got lost somewhere, but I knew he would be chasing hard.
I renewed my speed and put the pedal to the floor, but despite my efforts, my fatigued legs would only run at 4'40" per km.
I was very relieved to reach the finish and watch the others come in.
What an awesome event; possibly the best trail run I have taken part in! big ups to the organizers who went to great lengths to tape the course (4 rolls of tape!!) despite some anti-tape local trampers taking down the entire route, twice!
Its a shame that some people missed the turn off, and the race would have gone differently had they not.
Congratulations to Britta and the other winners!
https://www.strava.com/activities/1230661156