My Megalong Adventure...

27km in 3:23 (avg: 7:34) - Talk about long slow distance...

I decided through the week that I should at least see sixfoot once before race day. Sub 50 kindly offered a lift, so after waking at 4am we were off! we picked up Simon from Katoomba, and before we knew it we were heading off. There was a good number of people there or the run (apx 70).

The track quickly surprised me with some short sharp hills. I had only been running for 5 mins before a walk was required. We ran through open paddocks for a while before coming to some thicker bush where an apx 15 person congo line formed all the way to cox's river (about 7k). The run down was quite comfortable with some nice views.

We got to Cox's and found there was no water in the tank. This concerned me a little as I was counting on this water. I was only planning to run about 3 hours and thus not reaching the water drop that Kevin had kindly dropped at the top of pluvio (18k). I had 2 litres in the camblbak that sub 50 had knidly lent me but I was worried that it wouldn't be enough.

I had two options - go the whole 36k and fill up at Pluviometer or scale it back and conserve as much water as I could. I decided to take it easy so I left Spud, sub 50 and Simon go as we started our trek up the now fire trail which was Mini Mini. The climb was relentless and really surprised me. I knew it was big however I thought there would be much more running involved. I walk about 85% of the way - I couldn't believe it.

After running down to Alum creek reserve (13.5k) I turned around and headed for home. Coming down Mini Mini, I was still surprised how long the hill was - it went forever.

Although I was still feeling relatively strong, the climb from the Cox's to Megalong Rd was fairly slow going and I couldn't remember running down all of those hills a couple of hours before. It was good to get back to the car, sit down and chow into some food. It was great talking to sailaway as he got stuck into a beer or two.

All in all it was an invaluable day out. Even though I have read 1000's of reports about the track, it was still harder than I expected, and it has caused me to go into the race much more conservatively than I probably would have otherwise.

Stats were:

Megalong road to Cox's: 47 mins
Cox's to Mini Mini: 41 mins
Mini Mini, alum Creek return: 24 mins
Mini Mini to Cox's: 30 mins
Cox's to Megalong Rd: 61 mins

Woke up this morning with really sore butt muscles, and shoulder muscles as well (from the camblebak). I thought the butt muscle soreness was due to the walking up hills until I ventured out for a receovery run this afternoon. As daggers were being stabbed into my backside as I ran down a small hill, I realised that the soreness is definitely from running downhills.

Recovery run today was nice and easy. 7k in 40 mins (5:41).