Woodford to Glenbrook

Today was a very surprising run. In a good way!



I hadn’t given much thought to Woodford to Glenbrook, apart from it being a good way to get a longer run into my week without having to schlep around the harbour foreshore on my lonesome. I beat myself up pretty bad the day before with the 100km ride and 50 minute run on sore legs so I wasn’t expecting much.

Plus on Saturday night we went out to a Lebanese restaurant in Surry Hills for Meg & Giles’s farewell to their new jobs running Legal Aid in Kiribati. It was a very fun catch-up, but unfortunately I overindulged in food which was swimming in oil and salt, in a superheated room without nearly enough water and we didn’t get home and into bed until almost midnight. My guts felt crook and oil-ridden, I was hot and dry and quite dehydrated and consequently had a rubbish sleep, waking up gasping every half hour or so.

When I dragged myself out of bed about 6 ½ hours later the last thing I felt like doing was going for a run. But it was a glorious day and I knew it would be lovely in the bush, so I jumped in the car with Chris who had kindly offered to drive and off we went to Glenbrook. Parked and got the train to Woodford, arriving about 15 - 20 minutes before the start time which was absolutely perfect.

It was warm already before the start at 10.15am and there were about 200 runners and an absolute sea of Striders vests and CR caps. I looked around and tried to self-seed as best I could, planning to go out easy. The seeding worked well, apart from running on a few people’s heels for the first couple of hundred metres, after that I was away.

The plan to go out easy – not so much. I hate being caught in crowds so just fired off and thankfully the soreness in my legs fell away and they responded nicely. I spent the first 5 km riding the undulating terrain, getting used to the track and trying to reel people in. I seemed to catch people on the uphills, stay about even or pick up a few metres on the flat, but get passed by guys just speeding on the downhills.

I settled into a nice rhythm and the kms flew past, not many people around me. I got passed twice (and never saw those guys again, so they were definitely faster than me), and I went by a third guy who came back about 3 kms later saying “It’s all downhill from here” and shot off, I never saw him again!

The 10km or so of downhill was weird. I’ve never run full-on downhill for that long before and my calves were really feeling tight (in fact they still are 3 days later!) It was hard to maintain concentration to go fast enough, but every time I slowed I heard people behind me so I fired up.

With 5km to go I must have been lagging because a nice bloke from Colorado, a girl (Whippetgirl I think) and a guy in a black shirt (Bernard) who I’d passed earlier, all drew level. That gave me a second wind and I fired up a bit and managed to take off hard. The acceleration perversely felt good, as it occasionally does, and myself and Bernard got a little lead on. We ran together for a couple of kms and had a bit of a chat, then with 2km to go I was pulling ahead a little so he told me to go on. A few bikes clattered by and I passed a guy on a unicycle, by this time I was running flat out and feeling terrific. I burst into the clearing, round the corner, over the little bridge and across the line, happy as anything. The race really felt terrific, even though my legs were buggered. Finished in 1:41:43 (net time). I came 11th in my category and 22nd overall. No nutrition and only water on the run.



Chatted to a few fellas and waited for Chris to come in, he did a good job finishing in 1.54.43. We hydrated up and then started a slow job (and sometimes walk – especially on the big hills) back to the car, which was apparently about 5km. Felt like a solid morning’s run and definitely very enjoyable and highly recommended. Not sure how it works as a training run, with all that downhill I’m sure my HR wasn’t what it could have been (I didn’t wear the HRM, it’s battery is almost flat so it’s been pissing me off lately). But I guess bush running and going fast downhill are important skills to train on anyway. Whatever, I loved it.