Hello Old Friend

Today Total: 16k
Week Total: 41k
Month Total: 37k
Year Total: 1521k

After being inspired by fellow bloggers like Flakey and CJ who are training hard for Six Foot, the Brindabella crowd and the GNW aspirants, I figured it was about time to pay a visit to me old mate The Track.

I left home a tad before 4.30AM to head up the mountains on my way to Bathurst to spend time with the Halfpenny. When I arrived at Explorers Tree it was 10 degrees, raining and wall to wall fog - perfect :-)

By 5.40AM I was running and though dawn was trying to make its presence felt I was sure glad I packed my headlamp as it was pitch dark in the slot down the stairs.

Got to the Nellies Glen sign in bang on 16 mins which considering the conditions was pretty good. 3 mins later I hit the fire trail where I stopped to take off my headlamp and let the Garmin re-aquaint itself with the concept of satellite navigation.

The fire trail was muddy and fairly heavy going in places so I just took it steady. My VMO's were whinging a bit from the jolt down the stairs and so they were happy with the pace too.

Just as I crossed the stile into the paddock near the ford I noticed Garmy was scrolling through the data fields of its own accord. I now know this is a harbinger of imminent doom as when I got to Megalong Valley Rd (in 58mins) I started the reset procedure but Garmy wasn't responding to any button presses and the without further ado went grey screen on me.

It was somewhat ironic that I was at a cemetary - vale Garmy.

Anyhoo after a short break and offering up some prayers to the gadget gods to guide Garmy's spirit to the happy nerd running grounds I started back.

My goal for the return trip was to maintain a running action at least until the Nellies Glen sign and then if I wanted I could walk - which is exactly what eventuated.

Believe me - I didn't need to run up those mongrel 480 steps to get my heart rate pounding or my breathing out of shape - walking was doing a fine job!

By the time I got to the car I was quite light headed and feeling pretty shattered - good :-)

I intend to repeat this a few times - I have a theory that whilst lots of people train on The Track itself or on other steep trails they neglect stairs to their peril. Running down oversized stairs just takes so much more out of your legs than the steepest slope. In my view a Six Foot campaign is won or lost in the first 20mins - if you can hit the fire trail with no jelly in the legs (easier said than done) then you will have a good'un.

Well that's my theory :-)