West Head photos....a beautiful morning...

Started from Mackerel at 5:20 with a window of opportunity for a 2 hour trundle. Goal was to get to West Head and then a few more trails and if I had time, also to 'The Basin'.

A total of about 20kms would bring a smile to my face. 



 This is the entrance to West Head lookout aka 'Commodore Heights''.

 

 This is the path leading to the lookout at West Head. The first full sun beams through the trees and stings the sweat filled eyes.

 

More of the same. I could never get tired of this view or the feeling that this view gives you, part way through a run. 

 Here is the panorama you see from the lookout. This is looking due East and using the panorama function on the iPhone 5.

 

 Here is a view looking NNE from the lookout at West head. Hawkesbury on the left and Pittwater on the right.

 After a few moments to take in the view, I then continued back up the hill, away from West Head. I was then looking for a little trail with more views. I found a little track called 'Koolewong trail' which had 2 entrances about 200m and 250 m back from West Head lookout. It was a loop trail that had a beautifully maintained path, neat hard-wood sleeper edges and freshly trimmed natives lining the path which guides you to a lookout over the Hawkesbury to Lion Island. The path takes you to a hand-cut sandstone bench with a memorial plaque to Doris xyz, who donated her estate to the maintenance & upkeep of West Head National Park. The view above is what you see from the bench seat. Nothing short of spectacular! I must have run past this 50 or more times and never bothered to put the 1km loop into my itinerary.

 

Here is one two Angophoras (that stand as sentinels to the view) on either side of the lookout over the Hawkesbury.

One last photo of the view over the Hawkesbury to Lion Island.... I then continued onto West Head road for another 4kms and then onto the Basin trail, down to The Basin (about 5 kms). There were so many tents at The Basin that I could not see any grass at all - unbelievable. The road leading away from The basin is about 1km long and definately a Grade 5 climb - great for Six Foot & North Face training. Then back to Mackerel Beach trail and home again by 7:30 before the family & friends have gotten out of bed :-)

Testing new gear

I am in need of new shorts for the long run. I prefer to run in compression pants and have seen a new set of Salamon twin skin shorts that I liked - http://www.salomonrunning.com/au/product/exo-s-lab-twinskin-short-m.html. I went to footpoint clinic in Mosman to buy them. This shop is is linked to the Ultra168 site - http://ultra168.com/ You can also get the latest Salamon gear at reasonable prices.
However there is some stitching on the inside that chafed me terribly, so badly in fact that I bled through the pants - so this was a bad purchase indeed.
All the other Salamon gear has been fantastic. The salamon S-Lab shoes & the Sense 5L pack are all great and fit beautifully. I will keep buying Salamon gear even though my experience has been poor with the pants.
So, I am on the prowl for a new set of Salamon pants. I am going to the US in January so will search for a new set of pants over there....

Anyway, off to the trails....

Glenbrook Marathon

Up at 4:30, got ready and drove to collect Phil Morris (whome I had not met before). The weather was due to get to 30degC but little did we know it would get to over 32degC in the mountains. We had an amazing view of a the sun rising at 6am which was in retrospect a bit of an omen. Euroka Clearing in the Glenbrook Valley is about 15 minutes off the Great Western Highway - very remote indeed. After we got our race numbers (bibs) and our singlets, we relaxed for 40 minutes before the pre-race briefing - complete with a full lecture on what to do if there is a fire. This was very important, especially due to the impending heat & after the fire-storm fatality 2 years ago.

Pre-race briefing in Euroka Clearing

Before the race...if I had of known then what I did at then end of the race.......

 

So the hooter went at 7:40 and I started at 5:30 pace, which was the aim until the first steep hill climb 4kms in. Trail runners are very friendly, so there was lots of nervous banter during the first 4kms - this soon dissapeared as the temperature rose.

Just before the start...

Some beautiful trails about 18kms into the race...

So I turned the half-way mark in 2:16 and thought I felt pretty good. Most runners stopped and did not continue and a lot were just running the half so they finished (pretty relieved I am sure). The photo below shows a marshal filling up my pack's bladder, this was quite a quick transition for me though in retrospect I should have eaten a little more at this stage. It was an interesting lesson (for future long events ie: NF100) in how to handle these transitions. I need to mentally prepare better before entering these sections so that I can ensure that I do or get everything I need before leaving. The volunteers did an amazing job out there all day, always willing to assist and offer guidance.

Then first part of the second loop takes you straight to a 500m climb which is where my walking started. I ended up walking at 9min/secs per km for a lot of the second loop. The image below is the long, steady 6km dirt road that snakes away from the 32km to the 38km mark. This was hot & dusty and I had a hot wind blowing on my face the whole way.

The whole track was well marked and there were several signs with red crosses on it indication that it was the wrong way.The correct route was marked with pink ribbon.

In the photo below, you can almost feel the heat coming from the track. Hydration was the key for me and I was glad I had my hydration pack with me, though more gels would have been useful. Just after I took this photo a guy with some huaraches hammered past me - what a sight! This was my "Born to Run" moment... http://www.borntorun.org/

Summary

I will chalk this one up to experience. I was well under-baked for this event and was not expecting the extra loop at the end of the marathon to bring up the milage. Phil finished in 4:30 which was a stellar effort and I did 5:40. Shoes worked well and so did the pack (which I made sure I had 1.5L of water in it - upon leaving each checkpoint - to simulate the extra weight I will have to carry in NF100). I had the chest straps too tight on my pack so had some muscle soreness in the upper abdomen late in the race. No injuries other than my pride (for finishing so slow) and some sunburn. Monday I felt fine in the legs though it did take me a while to get to clear pee.

So, would I run it again? After some consideration - the answer is yes. I would just ask for cooler temperatures and some more mileage in the legs before the race.

A history lesson - with a little trundle

A late Sunday morning start - 5:45. Had to be home by 8:30am, which meant that I had to make sure I was very accurate with my map directions as the Blue Mountains can get a little tricky to navigate. The trail started at Mount York rd near Mum's place and had 5kms of road & trail till I got to the first sign below.

Then I descended down to about 600m above sea level to Lawson's Long Alley. This is usually a 5 hour round trip but at a steady 5:45 pace it is about 1hr 15 min. A slightly technical & not too taxing decent which follows the first mail carriage ascent of the Western escarpment of the Blue Mountains in 1823. A fantastic trail that I have not run since 2009.

The trail then winds past The Comet Inn in Little Hartley and back up Lawsons Long Alley, back to Mount York Rd and then home.

 The Magic Explorers wishing chair below at the end of Mount York Rd.

Dark running

A 4am start for a trundle on a Saturday might not appeal to everyone, however it holds a certain fascination for me.
Quite surreal and somewhat of an out of body experience is how I would describe these 'dark' runs. It is good training for the North Face 100 in May.
My headlamp was offering two types of cast beam, as you can see below. If you look closely, you can see some of the trail in the natural moonlight photo, in fact once your eyes get used to it, you probably could run the trails without a head lamp (especially of there was a full moon).

 Head lamp filtered view...

natural moonlight...

Head lamp single spot view...

Monday morning happiness

A beautiful morning for a trundle. 10kms easy on the usual trail. 2kms into the run I was almost knocked over by a big black Wallaby. Tried to chase it but almost ended up in someone's backyard which would not have been a good look at 5:30am.

 Morning fog...

 A no-through road sign in the middle of the bush, no problem for the trail runner!

I finally ran to McRae place instead of Burns Road. I prefer the Burns Road finish which is about 800m longer and also through the bush.

Run with El Coyote

After 16 days without a run, I finally got out today for an easy 16kms in the trails. I was joined by El Coyote (old mate) who was testing his new Garmin Forerunner 610. The Man Flu might have finally disappeared and I coughed up a bit of gunk but feel OK now 6:30 in evening. Trying to get ready for Glenbrook in 21 days will be interesting indeed. Just got to get to the starting line without injury!
Some photos of the boys in action below....

 El Coyote blasts out of a trail

 Relaxed as usual - with Vibram on foot - nice one

Trying to look relaxed

Run into work & an extra few KMs for good measure

Ran into work this morning to try to get my KMs up for the week. I also made it to work in time to run with the Fujitsu running group, which added another 6kms to the total for the day - this makes about 21KMs which is a good mid week medium long session. Ran most of it at 4:30 pace which is a bit quicker for me and it was nice to run with some other folks from the office as well as meeting a few new faces.
Fuelled up with eggs & spinach & multigrain toast & tomato fo breakfast - hoping that will fuel the machine till lunchtime!

The Long Run - some learnings

Some interesting hydration facts learnt on my Saturday long run. With my S-Lab pack, I have 1.5L of electrolytes and I have found that this is not enough to keep me hydrated on a 3.5 hour hilly run in 20deg C at slow pace. I started the run with clear pee and found that 500ML each hour was not enough to keep me hydrated - my pee turned browny yellow after 2 hours. I needed to stop at a tap and find another 500ML water to consume. Perhaps there are other physiological facts at play here but the fact remains that it appears that I need to consume more like 750ml per hour, so that is what I will aim for in the future.

Here are some photos of the run...the Gibberagong trail has this sign on it...

 A beautiful sight...

 The trail, (which is need of a bit of maintenance)...

 The Brush Turkeys were everywhere...

Wellington Trail running - hills, hills & more hills

In Wellington for a few days for work and last night went for a run in the Wellington Town Belt aka Te Ahumairanhi Hill. There was a 260m climb to start the run....steeper than the hardest part of the 6ft track. The downhills were very sticky and with 50km hour winds very common, you really have to watch your footing.

 You can see Westpac Stadium in the distance...

 Huge climb from the start of the run, which means very steep downhills! The views are incredible and there serious trail runners working out on the labyrinth of trails you can see below....

great trails like this one...

Running the West Head trails

After a hot few days, Sydney turned on a cool morning for my Saturday long run. Beautiful. Armed with my new Salomon pack and S-Lab shoes I trundled off for a slow 3hr 15min run. Some beautiful scenery and plenty of fauna on show. Photos below show what I am talking about....

Grosvenor Street signs & Bandicoot plague

The signs to Grosvenor Street from Lovers Jump Creek in Turramurra....

Someone should Kur-ing-gai Council that Bandicoots are in plague proportions in suburban North Shore backyards. Just fished one out of the pool yesterday. Due to the successful fox-baiting campaign over the past decade by National Parks & Wildlife, bandicoots have proliferated. They dig holes all over the backyard and the dogs goes beserk in the middle of the night when she hears the bandicoots in the garden. They are also contributing to the spread of ticks, which will apparently be in abundance this summer on the North Shore & Northern Beaches!

The chase of the winged Bruja

A slow 15km trail run to Grosvenor Street return this morning led me to a track where I encountered a winged Bruja (Born to Run word). I went after it and the video shows the result.....

Awesome Mtn bike track hidden behind oval

Behind Golden Jubilee Oval in North Wahroonga is an awesome mountain bike track....see pictures below.
I saw many big kids riding these tracks on the weekend - having a ball! The second photo loks like a moonscape!

The entrance to Aladdin's cave

Only 1.2kms from my front door is the entrance ot Aladdin's cave. A return trip of 10kms. What a great way to wake up in the morning! Some beautiful trails hidden from view in the Kur-ing-gai National Park...here are some photos....