Sixfoot 2008

I was driving up the mountains in the thick fog, rain and lightning on Friday night and I didn't care. I didn't care what the weather was like because I made the start line of sixfoot 2008. Woo hoo. Yes, I wasn't in good shape and yes there was going to be no PB's, but at least I was there.

Checked in to my luxury cottage with Sub 50's lovely family and crashed out. I was woken numerous time throughout the night with heavy rain.

Being at the back of Wave 2 was a real eye opener. It took a long time to get down nellies and Wave 3 started overtaking us not long after. I had paired up with Will who due to Ironman in 4 weeks, was not racing either.

It was fun running with Will. He took about 150 photos and a few videos along the way including:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U63M7oTz9oU (I will post link for photos when available).

We chatted, laughed and encouraged all those that were passing us from Waves 3 & 4. Sometimes I didn't think we would make the cut of as Dr Will kept offering medical advice and magic French potions to all those that were struggling. I also know the French enjoy their food, but the time he spent at each aid station was ridiculous - I thought he was going to sit down and ask for a menu!

We walked up part of Mini with Tim and ran with EveryReadyBunny (who did an awesome PB) for most of Black Range. We started to pick up the pace approaching Deviation as I think we were both keen to get home and have a rest. Rags became part of the group and we all pushed each other at a good pace to the finish (great to see you go sub 5:30 Rags!).

Ended up finishing in 5:43. Great to have a cool dip in the ice cold water of Jenolan Caves and catch up with everyone at the finish.

Lots of good runs out there, including PB's for Sub 50 and Spud, but special mention to: SfGnome, Redback, Portrunr, TheAuthor and Rags. All first-timers who had great first time results.

And don't you love sixfoot for the emotion at the finish line (relief, joy, sheer exhaustion). It is an awesome, but brutally hard race.

My splits were:

Megalong (56:17)
Cox's (1:49:12)
Mini Mini(2:31:33)
Pluvio (3:33:21)
Deviation (4:33:04)
Caves Rd (4:58:28)
Home (5:43:13)

Average HR was 158. Last year was 165.

I am actually quite happy with 2:10 from Pluvio to home, and 1:10 from deviation which wasn't too much slower than last year when doing 5:01.

I have already started plotting No.3 in 2009. It seems so long to wait!