Race report: Salomon Trail Series, Plenty Gorge, 11.7km

It's been pretty quiet on the Into the White front since my last post. And that's because there's not been much to report. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I sustained a slight tear to my hamstring in the closing stages of the Studley Park Salomon trail race and since then I've spent four weeks getting back to race fitness (or so I thought).

Week one was zero running and plenty of compression and ice. Week two was easy, short, flat running. Week three was getting back to normal, adding in a little bit of speed (e.g. 5x500m intervals) and week four (this week) was normal training.

As this was my first week back to normal, pain-free running, I tried to replicate my normal weekly schedule, dropping just the one 9km moderate lunchtime run. That meant 5x1000m intervals Tuesday, 9km tempo Wednesday and a 26km long run into work on Friday morning, plus today's race.

Somewhat of a concern was the long run on Friday, the second half of which was a real battle. Maybe I should have taken this week a bit easier, but what's done is done. In any event, the bigger concern was what had been missing over the past month: hills of almost any description (Anderson Street on the Tan doesn't count). Not really knowing how hilly the course was today left me slightly nervous at the start line.

After getting to the race with about 20 minutes to spare, I dropped off my bag, had a small warm up jog and got to the start area where I bumped into a couple of Dandy Trail Runners, Lachie and Cameron. Soon, we were away, and as usual, I had gone out pretty hard, trying to make sure I had a good position before the track narrowed and made passing difficult.

The first 4km went past pretty quickly, in 18:30 which included a couple of big downhills. The hills actually weren't hurting me going up but I quickly realised I didn't have much to give on the downhills once I got up them. Just before 5k, a new experience: a river crossing. In we plunged, up to our knees and then with waterlogged shoes there was a steep embankment to navigate which slowed me to a walk for a few meters before pushing on (squelch, squelch).

At 6km there was the longest hill on the course, 500m at an average 10% gradient. Until now I'd been having a bit of a battle with a girl in a yellow singlet, her running partner/coach and another guy in a red top. I'd had the better of them on the uphills and they'd had the better of me on the downhills. I saw them up ahead and told myself I could reel them in if I ran to the top at a good pace. I managed to do this, but shortly after, yep, there they went, past me on the descent.

I managed to catch back up to them on some tricky single track and we were all struggling a bit to find places to pass the slower long course runners. Moreover, I knew I was Into the Red (very different to The White), and coming up to the 8km mark, I was thinking "just another 4km to go, a lap of the Tan, you can.........." TRIP, FALL, <Superman pose>, CRASH, ROLL, STOP (just short of a big rock). The guys immediately behind me asked if I was ok, one of who was Lachie who looked really strong. I told them to keep going, got back up and continued on.

But that fall was my Waterloo. I had a sense of resignation as I watched yellow singlet, red top, Lachie and a few of the other strong medium course runners slowly (and then not so slowly) gapping me. It wasn't the fall per se. I think my legs, which to be truthful had already found a chink in my mind's armour, finally had an opportunity to ram home their message that it would be them setting the pace. If it didn't happen at there at the 8km mark, I'm pretty sure it would have happened somewhere soon thereafter - I simply wasn't running as well as the others and there was no way I was catching up to them.

There was a fairly undulating section between the 8km mark and the second river crossing at 10km and I was pushing as hard as I could but the only people I was passing were the slower long coursers (although I wasn't getting passed by anyone, either). Through the river again, and I had to navigate a steep, slippery embankment which I found really difficult and had to use my hands to drag myself up. I was forced into walking the steepest bit of the bank again and at this point, to be honest, I was counting down the meters, but remembering that the finish was at the end of a steep hill (yay).

The last Salomon race measured short (I had 10.66km v. an advertised distance of 10.8), of course this one measured long. At 11.7k, when the race really should have been ending, that last steep hill began. I caught sight of yellow singlet but she was much further up the hill than me and what's more, it was again steep enough to slow me to a walk for a few meters (it was 350m at 12%) and yellow singlet was gone.

I battled my way up the hill and across the line and I've got to say, I was absolutely spent. The course was much harder than I had anticipated and it had cleaned me up. My hand was also hurting from my fall and later when I washed off the mud, I had the beginnings of a pretty nasty bruise on the base of my palm. I finished in 1:03:32 (I measured 12.1km) which I later found out was good enough for 15th of 397 runners, and 13th of 184 male runners. My first top 20! And jeez, it felt like I'd earned it.

It was nice to catch up with a few of the Dandy Trail Runners afterwards (including Lachie who finished about a minute ahead of me for 13th, Andrea [8th overall in the long course women's classification!), Peter [who only warmed up with 5km to go on the long course], Travis and Cameron). The general consensus was it was a tough, though enjoyable course.

As bad as I felt, I had to agree with the second part - it was an enjoyable course. Very demanding, but there was a little bit of everything - steep hills, long hills, single track, grass, technical rocky descents, river crossings, the works. I was quite surprised to see later on my Garmin that there was only 257m of elevation gain - it felt like a lot more.

And I guess that means it's time to get my arse back into the Dandenongs and smash some hills in training!