Plan 49C

Today Total: 16k
Week Total: 44k
Month Total: 73k
Year Total: 1757k

Edit: Thanks for all your good wishes for Grand Halfpenny #2 - she came home Saturday afternoon and was bouncing off the walls shortly thereafter :-)

Geez Louise - the best laid plans.......

Due to family commitments a long run on Sunday is not an option and as we had planned to go up the lake on Friday night I was going to try and do my long run up there today.

But sadly Grandpenny number 2 (3yo) is in Westmead Childrens Hospital after an acute asthma attack early Friday morning - this means me, Mrs 2P and her other nanna are looking after Grandpenny number 3 (1yo) and Mrs 2P is taking her to the hospital for her 6 O'clock feeds morning and night as her mum is staying in there.

So since the household was going to be disturbed early in any event - who was I to pass up the opportunity to give Quarry Road a whirl? I takes em where I can gets em......

Wrong again 2P!!!

I duly turned up at the Hornsby end of Quarry Road - "Danger Track Closed For Maintenance" bugger, bugger, bugger! I briefly flirted with ignoring the sign but if the are concreting one of the long steep sections it may well be impassable.

What to do, what to do? Drive to Dural side that may be open - nuh closed too. Drive back through the gorge, look at street directory, procrastinate......

Eventually after wasting an hour I spied a fire trail heading out from Galston Gorge Rd (gate number 23) so I just parked up outside a house and hoofed it.

The other bugger was for once I didn't have my camelbak - I'd planned to do 2 laps refilling my bottles after each one. Fortunately I had both hand bottles with me and my Gu fuel belt - so I exchanged the standard bottle in the fuel belt for a 750ml Pump and filled both hand bottles - that should get me down the track a bit.

The trail hugs the escarpment for a k and then passes along about 400m of residential street before reverting to a very undulating (read steep up & down) fire trail till eventually getting to a junction with the GNW "alternate route".

I plunged down the extremely steep and very technical trail till as I suspected I hit Quarry Rd about 400m East of the bridge - no maintenance being done here & no signs either :-)

After getting to the bridge I decided to stick with technical trail and headed up to Fish Ponds and then up the Blue Gum Trail towards The Jambo (whatever the hell that is?).

The trail is very technical - lots of rock hopping and undulations - but also a lot of fun :-)

Noticing that my water supply was about half diminished I determined that I'd turn around at 1 hour 20 or 8k whichever came first - it was 8k - but only just.

The run back was just as much fun - the section from Quarry Rd back up to the escarpment fire trail was like climbing Nellies only thankfully shorter.

I finished in 2.45 for a 6 min positive split which isn't too bad considering.

Not what I set out to do and not as long as I'd have liked but like I said - I takes em when I can gets em :-)