It won't take an expert to realise that I didn't run in a dead straight line across this gorge in the Blue Mountains - something of a watch failure, or maybe GPS doesn't penetrate deep valleys. There's about 1.3 km missing from the advertised distance - that would be about the 9 missing minutes to make it all balance up. The 6 other minutes were spent lost - you can just about work out where that was, around where the dead straight bearing ends. I tried to run off down the Vera Falls track - fortunately I met a couple of people coming back from the same error before I'd wasted too much time. Well, it wouldn't be a trail run for me if I didn't get lost.
If you assume 6 steps to a metre (about 6.5" per step, I think, sounds fair), then this run involved 3500-odd steps up, and another 3500-odd down. Down is scarier, but up is much, much harder. I'm a little puzzled by this, but since I changed my running to focus on being really, really front-of-foot oriented, I've become much, much better at descending. It still takes an enormous amount of concentration (and regular wiping of the glasses on any dry-ish fabric around) but at the very least I feel much faster downhill these days, leaping from rock to rock like an elderly *gazoat.
* Not actually a word
Usually I try to run up hills, because no matter how slowly you do it, you pass a bunch of people walking and once you get to the top and get a head start on the downhill, how are they ever going to catch you? But hills are not stairs, and I did not run up many of these! I don't think many people did, in fact, except perhaps the first half dozen over the line.
A lot of this suffering was alleviated by the ambiance.
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| Random view near Wentworth Falls |
Really, there was one spot where I emerged from running doubled over through a passage cut out of the cliff and could have run straight out onto that cloud; it was at foot level at the point where the path doubled back around the bluff. I don't have any photographs of the waterfalls - but I'm sure Google can provide some.
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| At the gun... |
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| Coming in to the aid station @ 12k |
