I’ve been chipping away at this race report for a week or
so, umming and ahhing about the content. I’m sure no one needs to hear again how
tough the events over this weekend were. So from the beginning, I just want to
congratulate each and every participant who had a crack at this race. There
doesn’t get much tougher in Australia, simple as that.
I was honoured to be a Race Ambassador in the event’s
inaugural year. It was a role I love, and despite my big 'A' race for the first
half of the year being Western States, I was very keen to put in a strong
effort and be the best Ambassador I could be for Sean and Mel who have put
their hearts, much time and many trips from the Blue Mts to Bright and back
into the organisation.
It’s a real sign of the growing development of trail running
in this country that Australia was able to host a truly epic SkyRunning event. There
are only a few places in Australia that could host such a race with its
specific requirements, and there is no better place than Bright. Beautiful,
picturesque and pleasant; it has the right feel to lure anybody. Put on a
running event and it’s a sure thing to be a winner.
For me, after Tarawera, I was keen to keep the gradual build
up going. Whilst being a little disappointed with the result there, I knew that
it was probably a pretty true indication of where I was in my journey to
Western States. I’ve deliberately held back starting my big volume block until
later than usual this year as I’m trying to time my peak period much more carefully
this year and get to the big one in top shape.
But Buffalo was also an important race along the way. I’ve
been gradually increasing my strength and hill work over the last month, and
was confident I could put in a strong performance. I also knew in the back of
my mind that this is the type of race where anything and everything could go
wrong; but my goal was simple, to put in sustained effort, run to my strengths
and gain feedback on some weaknesses to work on in training (and I discovered a
few!)
Race eve saw me join the other Race Ambassadors; Anna Frost,
Grant Guise, Dekota Jones, Reece Ruland and Beth Cardelli on stage for a light
hearted talk hosted by Marcus Warner, president of the Australia/NZ SkyRunning
Association. It was great to see so many other participants there smiling and
sharing the experience. Sean Greenhill introduced the forum and the big guy
stood ominously under the elevation profile of the Stampede proud in the
knowledge that there would be no tougher challenge ever than his creation for many
of the people in the room and soon there would be grimaces replacing those
smiles!
Pre Race Forum |
As Sean stood there, resplendent in his shiny Western States
buckle, I took a minute to remind myself that tomorrow’s race was a significant
moment in the journey of Australian trail running and we were all part of a
little bit of making history.
I had a good dinner of polenta and lamb cutlets in town and slept very well the night before in the very comfortable room at the homely Café Velo. I awoke early
and had a big breakfast at 4:30am and got dressed in my racing kit before lying
down again for a little while. Soon, it was time to move to the start and I
walked down with Wes and Kellie Gibson to the banks of the Ovens River. The
vibe was electric at the start and I shook hands with many friends, the type of
handshake that was quietly saying ‘we are going to go through hell today, I
hope to see you at the finish’!
Before long the cowbell was rung and we were off, through
Bright and towards Mystic Mountain. I settled into the lead pack and the pace
was very cruisy. Leading them out, no one was keen to follow me down the wrong
way which I attempted just before the first single track on the climb to Huggin’s
Lookout. Thankfully Mick Donges took the tour guide role upon his shoulders from
here and I was confident that he out of everyone would know the way! The congo
line of runners running up to the lookout was a brilliant light show; at one
point on the switchbacks I looked back down the trail and just saw a snaking
line of glowing headlamps. Brilliant!
Once we hit the mountain bike trails leading up to the
summit of Mystic Mountain, the field spread a little thinner and I was running
well with the Kokoda Spirit team; Caine Warburton, Moritz auf der Heide and Ben
Duffus (who seemed to be all on a similar race strategy), Mick, Blake Hose,
Grant and Andrew Tuckey. As soon as we summited Mystic together, off shot the
Kokoda boys and I thought that it was either a pretty gutsy move to lead out at
that pace or they had no idea what was coming. For me the racing wasn’t going
to start until the end of the loop on Buffalo on the return journey. My tactic
was pretty much harm minimisation until then and I wasn’t keen to go with them
this early.
Heading down the Mystic descent, I thought how lucky we were
to have had a bit of rain in the past few days which softened up this mad drop
down to the gully below. During the SkyCamp, the course was dry and this
descent was very very treacherous; slippy and loose. The rain had made the
earth more penetrable and the lugs on my X Talons 190s were eating up this
stuff. This is the type of foundations that Inov-8 shoes were built on!
Summiting Clear Spot with the sissy sticks! What acracking morning we had to! Photo courtesy of Dan Bleakman from Ultra168 |
I followed Blake down and was impressed with his technical descending
skills; this guy is no doubt a superstar of the future. He looked so comfortable
throwing himself down and can climb like a demon too. Once at the bottom in the
gully I went about getting my poles out of my kit for the Clear Spot climb.
While doing this, Clarke McClymont appeared with Andrew, Mick and Grant and we
got stuck into the climb together. My plan was to get to the top feeling like
I’ve done a good climb but not busted. I managed to stick with Clarke and Tucks
most of the way. Clarkey was using his poles to hurl himself up the hill; much
more return from them that I was getting! Meanwhile around half way up Dekota
Jones cruised by and went after the Kokoda boys. He seemingly wasn’t even
working!
I summited Clear Spot well and felt like a job well done;
I’d slipped slightly off the back of Clarke, Tucks, Grant and Mick but that was
OK, hiking is definitely not a strength of mine but I wasn’t too far from the
pack and now we had a big downhill. Giddyup!
Not quite. Stupidly, I’d neglected to think about how to
stow the poles. So here I was belting down the hill, trying to keep my eyes on
the trail to avoid going arse over and trying to jam these poles back into my
pack and it just wasn’t happening for me. Half way down, I though I had it and
was just about to clip the pack back up and get on with the descent properly
until I dropped my bag and whooshka, worst case scenario time, out spilt all
the mandatory gear and my bladder etc! Here I was losing time on a section that
I should be gaining time on. Then of course, trying to play catch up I picked
up all the stuff and kept running down shoving it all back in which led to me
missing a turn and running about 200m down the wrong road…
Argghhh!! Eventually I got my pack sorted, turned around and
retraced my steps, poor Andy Lee had followed me down the wrong turn too and I
was very apologetic. In hindsight I could have avoided this whole mini debacle
by stopping on the summit of Clear Spot and taking 20 seconds or so to do it
there. Eventually we made it to Warner’s Wall and I attacked it vicously,
hurtling down, the X Talons gripping the soft soil beautifully. I managed to
catch Clarke by the bottom and hit the road section to Buckland Rd full of
running.
I got to the Buckland Rd aid station a little behind where I
wanted to be and resolved to hit Keatings Ridge a little stronger than I had
planned to try and bridge the gap a little. The Keatings climb is my type of
climb, I can do that sort of thing all day and night; and once at the summit
threw myself down the long gradual descent to Eurobin Ck. I hadn’t seen anyone
on this leg at all except the lovely Anna Frost who was out forerunning the
course. She was as joyful as ever and gave me some good encouragement, telling
me that a couple of the front runners were working way too hard and that I
looked comfortable in comparison.
I emerged out of the bush and I hit the short downhill road
section leading to the checkpoint well and caught a glimpse of Tucks, Mick and
Guisey altogether on the road. By the time we got to the Checkpoint we
basically all came in as a bunch. Nadine had all my stuff ready to go, I
restocked water and Hammer Perpetuem, dumped my poles as per the plan and left
quick smart with Tucks just behind me.
The Big Walk climb I knew was a crucial uphill and my plan
was to get to the top feeling like I had worked, but not to the point of
exhaustion or ever going over that threshold line. So I dug in, just small
little grinding strides. By the first road crossing I’d almost caught Tucks
(who had gotten ahead of me), Grant and Mick who were working together. Just
before the second road crossing I had joined the group and we enjoyed each
other’s company chatting away. I hadn’t realised at the time but all of us being
over 30 had inadvertently started the ‘old man train’ as it was later to be
dubbed. With 20 somethings Dekota, Blake, Ben, Caine and Moritz out in front it
was becoming quite a battle of the age brackets!
Unfortunately at the next road crossing, Mick slipped back
and I was later to learn was hurting quite badly from back issues so it was
left to Tucks, Grant and I to dig in. We ran a lot of the climb together. I
took a bit of a spill on the granite rock slabs, thinking the rock was much
grippier than it ended up being, and this was a little reminder to take care of
myself; there was a long way to go. A couple of km from the top Grant and Tucks
pulled away and I was left to summit solo, which was good in a way as I didn’t
want to get stuck running at their pace; they were both in fine form and
climbing very well. It was great to see Grant especially at the top of his
game; he had obviously aimed up for this race and talking to him he told me
this was the best form he had been in in a long time. It was showing!
I was greeted with cowbells and claps at the top of Buffalo
and ran through the aid station, deciding to restock on the return before the
descent. The Underground River and Chalwell’s Gallery loop is a deceiving
little loop, full of little up and down pinches and some of the stairs were now
beginning to hurt a little and forced me to a hike. Just before finishing the
Underground River trail section of the loop, Dekota came easing by on his way
back and man did he look good! Blake wasn’t too far back either and had his
race face on. Then shortly afterwards Ben Duffus came along. Wow this is definitely
the next generation of ultra runners right there! They’d taken on Buffalo hard
and with a pretty damn good prize for first Australian home it was game on it
seemed!
Enjoying the Buffalo descent. Photo courtesy Ian Hoad |
I didn’t see anyone else before I started the Chalwell’s
Loop and given that I’d lost around 3 minutes stuffing around down Clear Spot I
was happy were I was positioned. The race definitely would start for me on the
Buffalo descent, where I could run to my strengths a little more. On the return
back to the Chalet, I loved seeing the other runners come up the trial. Near
the entrance to the Gallery Loop, I saw Clarke who was just starting the loop,
then a little back were the Lees (Andy and Mark), Wes and many others. We high
fived and yelled words of encouragement to each other. There was a lot of camaraderie
out there!
At the Chalet, I restocked my supplies and caught up to
speed with Nadine about how the race was panning out in front. It was a little
disappointing to see Moritz there having pulled from the race with ITB issues.
He had run a brilliant Tarawera and I was keen to see what he could do on this
type of course. I kissed Nadine goodbye and I hit the descent hard, resolute on
catching Tucks and Guisey. I was told the gap was 4 minutes and I knew I could
bridge that by the bottom. I ran hard all the way too, stretching out on the
second half of the descent, throwing a bit of caution to the wind and no doubt
hurting my quads in the process. I loved greeting all the runners coming up the
climb and everyone was so courteous, moving to the side of the trail and giving
room. I saw so many friends; some I’d met at the SkyCamp and others back from
home or elsewhere, but they all so determined to get to the top. This was a
real highlight of the race for me.
Back down at Eurobin Ck checkpiont, Nadine had mentioned
that I was now only around a minute or two behind Tucks and Grant with Caine
not too far in front but the others were ‘miles ahead’! I restocked on Hammer
Gels and Perpetuem and Nadine asked if I wanted my poles. Having the earlier
experience of trying to get them back in my pack in the back of my mind, I
stupidly I said no. Leaving the checkpoint, I got stuck into the road section,
wishing all the juniors on their road bikes who were participating in their
National Champs the best of luck and it was good to see the a connection
happening between sportspeople from different disciplines, albeit temporarily
before I turned left to hit the trails. About a third of the way up Keatings,
Brick and Gretal who were sweeping the race came by and I asked them how far
Tucks and Guisey were and they said ‘just ahead’. There just happened to be a
nice straight section of trail just then and I finally got a glimpse of them,
surprisingly walking up the gradual ascent. I thought that finally some reward
for hard work!
The Old man Train chugs towards Buckland! |
So I got stuck in and slowly and surely reeled them in and
by the very top of the ridge had caught them and once again the old man train
was back rolling on. We descended Keatings well, I was keen to pull away from
them to give me some breathing space but they both dug in and we hit the road
to the Buckland aid station working well together. We got to see, on a long
stretch of road, Caine running ahead and we estimated the gap was 3 minutes.
The old man train made a pact to dig in and go after him!
It was at the this checkpoint that I made a big mistake,
taking on too many cups of coke, and in hindsight I would have been much better
off just running through there and not stopping. Immediately after drinking
them, I began to get some stomach issues and knew I had taken on too many
calories too quickly and I needed to back the pace off. Nadine was on the
douche grade road section leading up to Warners Wall and I told her it was
going to be a bit of a struggle now to hold onto Tucks and Grant who had
already started to slip away a bit.
And Warner’s Wall sucked hard. Not long into the climb I
came across Ben Duffus, laying flat in the middle of the trail motionless. I
did have a moment of thinking the worst but this was put to rest when he was
able to tell me that he had called for assistance and it was on it’s way. Later
I was to hear his full story but it’s best to read his own open and honest account here.
About half way up the Wall of Death, all the Coke and banana
I’d had at Eurobin came up and I couldn’t believe I’d made such a stupid
mistake with my nutrition. I needed to press the reset button, give up on
staying with Tucks and Grant and just get back to basics; water and Hammer
Perpetuem as per the race plan. I marched on. I didn’t realise how long this
climb was and every time I attempted to break into a run it was only short
lived before my heart rate told me that I’d be better served power hiking this!
It seemed like forever but finally I got to the top of Clear Spot to be told
that Tucks and Guisey had opened up the gap to half an hour which really didn’t
surprise me at all; I just felt so sluggish on that climb. I descended Clear
Spot cautiously; my quads were now quite tenderised and fatigue was creeping
in.
Finally I got to the final Checkpoint at Bakers Gully, a bit
wrecked but knowing I’d get the job done. Tiffany McClymont and Ed Perry were
both there, and Tiff told me I was in 5th, which didn’t equate so I
inquired as to who was in front and she told me that Blake had dropped at this
checkpoint a little earlier. This really was a shame as he had obviously put it
all out there on the course and gotten so close. But it also meant that now
Caine, Tucks or Grant were in line for the ticket to France with Caine in the
box seat leading the way. I’ve known Caine for a little while now and have
always been impressed with his work ethic towards his training and general
enthusiasm for building the sport in Queensland. I couldn’t think of a more
worth recipient.
So I came to the last climb, mentally thinking I’d at best slowly march up, but physically I was broken. Ultimately Buffalo would win and it was slow murder; it had me hung, drawn and quartered and then emptied me from the inside out. I was rueing not carrying my poles
with me on the return journey; I was struggling to get purchase on the terrain
and staying upright was hard enough. Finally I found the only strategy that
worked; walking 30s and having a 20s recovery break. It was far from ideal but
it was, step by slow step, getting me towards the finish!
About a third of the way up I could hear Clarke’s dog Cooba
barking crazily from the general direction of Bakers Gully and knew that
Clarkey must be there. I knew it was going to be a struggle holding him off if
I didn’t get to the top of this damn climb. Sure enough, on the longest and
slowest kilometre of my life, Clarkey began mowing me down. I was having a
little sit down on a log when he was approaching; I was in my own little hurt
locker and Cooba comes bounding up with a bloody big stick in his mouth and
drops it at my feet wanting to play fetch. If anyone knows Cooba too, he
doesn’t take no for an answer! I had to laugh otherwise I would have cried. I
didn’t even have the energy to shoo Cooba away, and the little bundle of energy
finally left me to finish off my pitiful walk as he followed Clarke up the
incline.
The salt was well and truly rubbed in the wound when
Amadeus, another friend from Sydney, came by. I was very happy for him, there
were a couple of guys today who really stood up and showed they’re forces on
the ultra trail scene and this bloke is one of them. He’s been getting closer
and closer to a big result in a while and it’s very well deserved.
Finally I was at the top and out of my misery and my last
hurdle was to get back into town down the last descent safely. I nursed myself
down, my diaphragm was complaining big time from being worked so hard it was
making deep breathing very difficult, and short, sharp shallow breaths was the
only method I could manage. Entering the van park with about 600m to go the day
was to take another strange twist.
Clarkey crossing the line after his misadventure! |
As I was running through the park, I noticed Clarke with
Cooba walking around. At first I thought he had come back out onto the course
after finishing the race to see other runners come in, but I could tell from
the look on his face that he wasn’t a happy man! He told me he had gone off
course and was trying to find the finish. I told him were it was and that I
would wait for him at the finish line; I was worried if I stopped to walk I
would’ve seized up and I simply just had to keep jogging. It was then that
Kellie Gibson came jogging up to me and asked me if I had scene Clarke. I told her
that he was just behind me but he was walking it in. At the finish I pulled up
and dropped around 5 metres from the finish to wait for Clarke and eventually
he walked along and crossed the finish. It was the only fair thing and I guess
me out of everyone knows the frustrations of getting lost! Clarke would have
been 5th guy, unfortunately Amadeus had no idea about Clarke’s
misadventure so crossed in 5th. I guess giving Clarke one spot back
hopefully would have dulled his frustrations somewhat!
So came the end. 75.5km later, near 10h and 7th
position.
Thanks again to Nadine for the wonderful crewing as always
and to Sean and Mel for the opportunity to be a race ambassador. From the
SkyCamp to the finish, I enjoyed every second of it!
Shod by: Inov-8 X Talon 190s, Injinji 2.0 Ultra Thin toesocks
Sustained by: Hammer Perpetuem and Hammer Gels
Hydrated by: Water with Hammer Fizz