Crackneck

I heard about the Carcoar Cup on the Coolrunning forums from some of the Western Sydney Marathon runners who were heading out there to race it and it seemed like a great excuse for a weekend of running and camping. Carcoar is a tiny little town about 30 minutes outside of Orange that appears to exist in the century before last, there's not a whole lot there besides the pub, but it was a pretty decent pub which did a tasty pre-race pasta dinner. We had a slight hiccup the day before the race which had us on the side of the Mid Western Hwy with a flat tyre after doing a driving tour of the course. Darren Mclellan stopped to see if we needed assistance, but the NRMA was already on the way and I was soon in possession of a car with a space saver tyre on it that would not be getting us the 300kms home, but I would deal with that after the race. The race started at 8:00am from the main street in Carcoar and it was freezing, I was keen to start running just to warm up, the initial part of...

I'd been pretty nervous in the days leading up to this race, not only was it my first ultra, but also a local race put on by Terrigal Trotters who I run with. The start line at Teralba was a well organised affair with the check-in, weigh-in, and pre-race briefing all running smoothly. I caught up with dad (who was volunteering at various points over the weekend) and a few other Trotters who I was glad to see were as nervous as me. With everyone sorted the final countdown was on and we were herded out onto the road, then we were off at a very slow pace. By far the slowest I've ever started any race... it was going to be long day. I spent most of the climb to the motel running with another guy and just chatting. I had no idea if I was going out too hard, I just knew that there was at least one woman in front of me and I was going a lot easier than I did while training. Dad directed us across the road at the motel and I had Shona just behind me as we started the climb up to the co...