I've been hearing about the Mt Wilson to Bilpin run for a couple of years now. How much fun it is, what a nice country feel the race has, the beautiful course, the 7km hill at the end, the free scones at the start - all of it. It's been recommended to me by more people than I can remember, but I'd never had the chance to give it a crack before.
This year at Easter, Sarah and I camped at Mt Wilson on the way to Mudgee and I ran the trails early morning before we hit the road. It's such a spectacular part of the Blue Mountains, and so different to the more southern parts around Katoomba, that I thought "This is the year, I have to give this race a go"
Perfect training for the Sydney marathon, a hard 35km bush run about 5 weeks out, so I signed up and found myself sharing a ride out along Bells line of Road on Saturday morning with Christian Ellis, his girlfriend Nikki and his Irish mate Dave. I have to say that the drive itself was the highlight of the day, getting to know those guys better and having a good old chat on the drive. We flexed our democratic muscles at the Mt Wilson hall, voting for the Federal Election in an area which only has 90 registered voters (as the pamphlet-slinging volunteers wondered aloud to each other, "I've never seen so many people here!") and then headed to the starting oval for a very urbane 10am kickoff.
It pushed out to 10.30 to allow the last shuttle bus to arrive and we stood around hopping from one foot to another, shivering (I looked at the weather before leaving home and it was 2 degrees and overcast at Mt Wilson) and cramming in a few last minute homemade scones with jam. Then they marshalled the fairly small field of 300 people and the local fire chief started us off with the atomic timing device of his mobile phone.
I had planned to run with Christian and Dave and we stuck together and cruised over the first km of road and the next km of firetrail. By the time we got to the trail Dave Criniti was already a blur in the distance but most of the second group was around and slightly ahead of us. Steve Hume stormed off. Then on the first few short and sharp hills Dave took off as well.
I was conscious of trying to conserve my heart rate and my legs because I had no idea what the trail was going to be like (and to be honest I was more than a little nervous of the famed 7km final hill), so I didn't attempt to stick with Dave. Shortly afterwards Christian caught up with me, and then shortly after that he started pulling away himself. Let him go I thought, it's not worth blowing up. Thank god I did, as I realised when I saw his finishing time. It would have ruined me keeping that pace even halfway.
So on it went. I wasn't feeling fantastic I have to say. My heartrate felt high from the start and my legs weren't able to get into any rhythm. I usually love bush running and the trails here were absolutely beautiful, but I was struggling to enjoy the race. It just felt hard.
It felt long too. By the time I got to the section around halfway I was thinking, "Wait a minute. I haven't been running particularly fast but I feel as if there's no way I'll be able to keep this up for another 17km. It feels like I've been running for ever, and there's so much more to go." What's worse, this section was a couple of kilometres of flat asphalt road. The easiest part of the whole race, surely? But I was feeling the worst. I was passed by 3 or 4 people and tried in vain to stick with them, but after a few metres would end up just dropped the pace and watching them disappear into the distance around the next bend. Morale was low.
Back into the bush and after a short while the trail turned downhill and kept going down. There was nobody around at this point. I couldn't see anyone ahead or hear anyone behind. I was apprehensive that I've somehow taken a wrong turn and was headed off randomly into the bush, but didn't know what to do about it. The trail just went down and down and down, steeper and steeper and I was trying by best to let go and cruise without smashing my quads, but it took a lot of concentration over the loose rock and washed out trail to keep my footing.
Finally there were footsteps pounding behind me, which offered a relief of sorts to know I was on track, but also that primal dread of being chased down! Enough to make my lose my footing and roll my right ankle as the guy passed me. It's always a horrible moment of self-checking as you hop a few steps and then gingerly try it out again, but thankfully the ankle was intact and I continued downwards with renewed vigilance.
It's shortly after this point that you start to think, "Look I don't want to be ungrateful here. It's really nice to be running downhill and getting all this free speed, but I'm ready for it to stop now. In fact, I wouldn't even mind running back uphill for a while now". There was more to come however, but eventually it ended and it was over the river and straight back up.
This was the 7km hill I'd been hearing so much about and amazingly, rather than dying on it, I felt the strongest I had been all race. God knows why I was feeling rubbish at 17km on the flat road, but at 28km on a gnarly washed out trail tending upwards I was feeling terrific! I was able to push a bit and the hill wasn't nearly as steep as I thought, so I held around 5min/kms and actually picked up and passed a few people for the first time in hours. I felt stronger and stronger going up the hill and by the time I hit the last 2km of flat along Bells Line of Road I was flying, doing just over 4 minute/kms and passing runners one after another. I had one guy in my sights when suddenly there was the finish line and I crossed with a big smile on my face, both happy for the race to be over and even happier that I'd finally come good in what had been a bit of a mental struggle for most of the day.
Christian doing it easy:
A hot shower in a nearby spider filled shed was a nice touch, then it was good to be in dry warm clothes back by the finishing line and debriefing about the race with Christian and Dave who had smashed it, Christian coming 10th and Dave 15th! I also had the chance to chat to a lot of familiar folks and just enjoy the finish line atmosphere for a while, until we went off to eat the saltiest, most feral apple pie I've ever had the misfortune to bite into, and an easy drive back into Sydney. Top race, I'll be back.
In the end I got 2:42:19 and came in 19th place (about 3 mins behind Dave and 9 behind Christian).
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