fungus

What is this?

Fitzroy Falls Fire Trail Marathon

 Endomondo Running Workout:  42.29 km in 4h:44m:59s

I think I must be some kind of rain magnet; it was over 30 in Sydney on Friday, but a trail to run on Saturday and what happens? Rain, or more precisely, cloud. Cue 4+ hours of running over wet clay, wet rocks and wet leaves all dimly perceived through wet glasses. I suppose, to be fair, Jabulani this year was hot, and apart from the vision, cool & wet is the ideal running environment. I didn't fall over, and I don't think I would have run any faster if it had been dry.

We stayed in Robertson overnight at a very good B&B. The race starts at the McGee family (of Olympic cycling fame) bush cabin resort, but you have to book about 3 years in advance to get a room there for the night before the marathon. Some hardy souls camp; I quite like camping but it has a stiffening effect on the body. Plus, who knows? It might rain.

 As you can see above, the race doesn't waste much time getting you into the bush, although actually the real bush doesn't start for about 3 km. The opening and closing section are through the margins between bush and farm.

Like most of the rural races, it's a fundraiser; this one for the fire service. Sadly, they don't have a sponsor. Like Nowra though, this was extremely well organised at both the start and finish.

 I might have shaved if I'd known we were going in for extreme close ups - this is pre-race thoughtfulness. Someone asked me the other day what I think about when I run; the answer was "Not much". (A better answer would be - how to run, how not to fall, and how to keep going - still, it's not much, is it?) If you ask me what I'm thinking in this picture, I suspect it's something along the lines of "Why?".

Probably part of the minds of most of the people here are thinking the same thing. Mainly though, it's things like, is my watch working, are my shoes OK, do I have all my food/water, what pace am I planning.

I was a bit worried by the number of people who had brought their own water, in case that meant that there wouldn't be much on the course, but there was in fact plenty. Of course, carrying your own means you have it when you want it, if you don't mind the sloshing.


One day my plan is to be able to take pictures during the race; I haven't really found a way to mount a camera stably (is that a word?) and I don't really feel up to carrying one in my hand. Plus, stopping is not something I enjoy doing because restarting is not easy. It's a pity, because there's a lot to see and I'm not sure that my memory and/or wordsmithery are up to all of it.

Anyway, most of the bush looks pretty much like what you see here, but there was one strikingly different section at about the 15km mark where for one reason or another the miscellaneous gave way to a section where there were three very clear layers; the undergrowth up to but not beyond a metre, just one species of eucalypt with polished white trunks visible from 1 metre to about 4-5 metres, then from 5 metres up, the crowns of the trees. It looked amazing, almost too homogeneous to be true, a little bit unreal.

I'm sure that to a trained (and less tiring) eye there were may other equally specific sub-systems. We certainly ran through a diverse range of heights (see the link for an altitude graph) and edges (see the satellite picture in the link). In fact, it might be a reasonable assumption that there were as many micro-environments as there were trail surfaces, since in a way the trail surface is produced out of the environment.

Of trail surfaces there was a plethora; what you can see in the finish picture is not at all typical, in fact. The fire trails are 4 wheel drive tracks - and in some places, extremely rough - and the surfaces included polished mud, mud with embedded small rocks like cobblestones, mud with loose rocks, mud with tree litter, mud with roots, rock face, rock face with loose stones, rock face with leaf litter (not as much rock face as it might appear in this listing of it), sand!!!!, bricks!!! (the latter two obviously added to reinforce the trail surface against water/erosion, three stream crossings (very low water). I'm really very anxious about falling - partly I'm scared of hurting myself and partly I really don't know how, after a certain point, I'm going to get up and keep going. As a result, a lot of mental energy goes on watching where my feet are going. One side effect of this is that I don't like running fast down hills, which means I have to run up the hills because the "rest up, hurry down" strategy doesn't work for me. It's very surprising to me that I can actually run up hills, particularly since my glutes have been pretty much in constant pain since the M7. In fact I was thinking yesterday as I ran up a hill - the last 10 km of this course is ALL up hill - that the only way I know I'm running up a hill is that I am passing people who are walking. It certainly doesn't feel very fast. But as in Nowra, I passed a lot of people going up hills in the last 10k, and only one of them managed to overtake me subsequently. Unlike Nowra, I didn't have a finishing burst to mow him down.

What else? It was my first run using gels, concentrated fast acting carbohydrates. They were certainly a big improvement on previous nutrition strategies, and no side-effects.

It took a long time to do the last 10k. The clock time was long, but the mental time was longer. I came 111th, out of how many I don't know. The time qualifies me for the Six Foot Track (Katoomba to Jenolan) in March, so I guess I'd better start working on my trail running. That's a serious run!

One of the competitors yesterday was on his 214th marathon. Rest assured, that is one record I'll not be pursuing. Apart from anything else, 214 ice baths is not happening.

Big vote of thanks to Liz for logistics and moral support. How people drive themselves home after one of these things I can't imagine. I doubt I sat in one position for more than 1 minute on the 200 km trip home.