This is truly a stunning course and, following my solo run here in 2018, I have always wanted to come back and do it again. However, circumstances have prevented me from running here again until this year. So, it was great to be able to return this year. Unfortunately, though, a fall damaged my right quad, and, with travelling on the mainland for an extended period, I wasn’t able to get the necessary kilometres under my belt for a solo run. Instead, I became the captain of a two-man relay team with my youngest son.
I initially planned that we would run 10k legs each and do
the last 4k together. Thus, I looked up my schedule from 2018 and put a table
together with what I had planned for 2018 and what times I actually did back
then—I did this for each kilometre of the legs I was going to run and the total
time each leg took me to complete. As I was now running as a team, I decided to
keep the same planned times from back then for this year’s event. The rationale
behind this was that, even though I am now 75 years old I would only be running
half the distance. I printed my planned schedule out and carried it with me
during the event so I could compare 2018 with this year.
All of that changed, however, when my son, who hasn’t run
much more than 15k in training, said that he didn’t want to run 14k at the end
and would prefer to run that distance as his first leg. I quickly changed things
around a bit to reflect the different stages of our run. Because he has two
young boys, I opted the run the first 10k leg so he wouldn’t disturb them too
early in the morning. As it was, our alarm was set for 3:15 am so I could
commence at 5:00 am at Dennes Point.
Our support crew was my wonderful wife, Val. I decided that
I wouldn’t need her to stop each 2k as I would have stretches sitting in the
car when I could rehydrate and eat to sustain my energy.
For the first leg I opted to wear an old pair of Soloman Speedcross
4 Trail shoes as, apart from the starting few hundred metres, it was a gravel
road. As support vehicles drove passed, they left clouds of dust that could be
tasted with each breath. The morning was overcast when I got away at 5:10 am,
for which I was grateful. My aim was to sort of powerwalk the first 2k because
it was all uphill. I accomplished this in 5 seconds faster than I did in 2018. From
then on, I forged ahead, not worrying too much about conserving myself for the
latter stages of the run. As a result, I ended up completing that leg in around
5 minutes faster than 2018 (in saying this, I’m not taking into account the
difference between watch pace and our change overs because they didn’t happen
exactly on an even kilometre). Having an old man’s bladder meant that I did
have to have a stop at around 3.5k and I also paused to chat with a few people
and check on one young lady who dropped back. That was just to ensure that she
was okay. For me this is a race, but I always remember how John Landy stopped
in the middle of an important 1956-mile race to help Ron Clarke to his feet
after he had fallen. Keeping an eye out for others and trying to help or
encourage them is always more important than setting a good time or getting a
good finish position (but at my age top finish positions are out of the
question). I did ask the person with the stop/slow sign near the CWA Hall if I
was expected to run more slowly because the slow side of the sign was facing
me. Aren’t I cheeky?
In my second leg from 24-34k where I wore my Brooks
Adrenaline 21 shoes, I had ample opportunity to encourage others whether they
were faster or slower than I was. A couple of “highlights” of this leg was when
I caught up with one young lady and spoke to her. She must have had her mind on
other things and hadn’t heard me coming and I gave her such a fright that she
squealed loudly, and I jumped aside. I slowed down to talk with her for a while
before heading off at my pace. A bit later, I caught up with a parkrun friend
just before 9:00 am and commented that, as it was almost time for parkrun to
start, we had better have a 5k parkrun sprint. There were so many people
driving by or sitting in cars waiting for their runners who yelled out words of
encouragement as I continued. It’s one thing I really treasure about Bruny—the amount
of encouragement that people shout to you as you pass them. Sometimes, what
they say just overwhelms me. By now I was running very fast (at least for me)
and completed my leg in something like 16 minutes faster than 5 years ago. I
did begin to feel the strain on my injured quad and the fact that I wasn’t
carrying any fluids. I was able to tell Val that I wanted some at the next vehicle
support point.
My third leg, 44-54k, was again quite fast, sometimes up to
3 minutes per kilometre faster than last time. When one young lady said that I
was on fire, I did tell her that that was how my legs were feeling. It was
beginning to hurt even more but, for once, I didn’t let that slow me down. It surprised
me that I could, at least for today, roughly keep up the pace I was running at
without fading badly. Again, there was so much encouragement being offered by people
as I went by, or they drove by.
It was then my son’s turn to take over, but he was showing
signs of struggling with cramps and I didn’t know if he would be able to
continue. I made the decision to join him at the 58k mark to run the baton
home. Our times to the finish dropped off dramatically as he courageously
continued on, not wanting to go against his promise to get to the line with me.
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