Crackneck

After being unable to get into WA for the second year running (No Delirious WEST again). This year the FKT of choice was the Great South West Walk. Down in South Western Victoria, the 250km walk covers forest, the Glenelg River, the Southern Coast and the spectacular headlands just outside of Portland. The trip down to Portland in itself was an adventure as we hit a Roo just outside of Seymour. Writing off the car and I had an unplanned train & bus trip to Melbourne Airport to pick up a replacement hire car. So we had one day instead of two to scope out the track before I ran! All the scoping done, I was a bit more tired than I like but was at the Info Centre just before 4am Tuesday morning. A couple of photos in front of the signs & starting the new tracker I had hooked up for anyone that wanted to follow. I counted down the 4am start and mum filmed me running off. The initial run out of town, I think was nice. I mean you follow the coast line. But it was also dark, and I was ...

I was registered to do Lakes 100. A 100km trail race up near Hawks Nest, so had been training sand for a couple of months to handle its long sand sections. Unfortunately, Greater Sydney got thrown into lockdown the week before the race and it had to be postponed. So when you've been training for a flat sandy run, clearly the only alternative is to instead go for a technical hilly FKT! I started in the cold at 4:30 am with Tim, who wasn't going for the FKT, but was aiming to complete the 100km (he made it 76km, the furthest he's ever run). Fortunately, the current lockdown rules don't limit the amount of exercise you can do AND this entire FKT route is within the lockdown zone. So it was on!! Speedy early morning section through the bush and streets, running past Bernhard at Pearl Beach (I was ahead of schedule), he then caught up to me at Warrah Trig. And the sun came up as we were hitting the sandy GNW trails on the way to the tip (sounds worst than it is... it's a...

(Distances mentioned are based on the original mapped distances. The actual run distance ended up 10km longer than what the maps calculated. The route used was the current route, no temporary deviations in place. But there are newer course changes) The original plan had been to fly to WA and race Delirious WEST as the first race in a crack at the Triple Crown (3 Two Hundred Mile races in a calendar year). But COVID restrictions brought that plan to a halt and after discussing it with Julie Brock, we both had the same backup plan. GNW!! The run took place on the same weekend that Delirious WEST was originally planned and I wanted to do South to North (Sydney to Newcastle) because that’s the way the bushwalkers hike, it’s the way I first hiked it in 2006 and I really don’t like the giant steps in the southern section so wanted to get them out of the way early. So the plan was made! Mum and I met Julie and Dave (Julie’s partner and support crew) at the Obelisk at Macquarie Place just befo...

After completing Hume and Hovell 100 miler it was now a matter of seeing whether I’d be recovered enough to complete another 100 miler in 4 weeks time. I waited a couple of weeks to check and make sure I could still run, all was good so I booked the trip. Feral Pig Ultra was in my sights! If I completed this race I would have 16 points over 3 races. Enough points to qualify for entry into the UTMB lottery next year. We flew into Perth on the Thursday, with the race starting on Friday night at midnight, a terrible starting time. I didn’t really know when to eat or sleep. the pre-race dinner was actually a pre-race lunch on the Friday. Then I tried to sleep, but it’s really hard to sleep when it’s not sleeping time. Unfortunately our hire car also got backed into while I was trying to sleep, so that was something else that had to be dealt with (and is still ongoing). We got up at 8pm and I got ready to race, then headed out to the Perth Hills Discovery Centre for rego, bag check and afte...

I had serious FOMO after volunteering at GNW this year, so the quest to find a 100 miler to enter was underway. At first I thought I’d go Feral Pig (163kms on the Bibbulmun track in WA). But then I saw a Facey post from Hume & Hovell announcing that they were worth 6 UTMB points. Looked good, so I sent a few messages to people who’d done the race in previous years to get a sense of what the trail and race are like and all I heard back were good things (apart from the flooding last year), and being in a location that I’d never raced before and on an actual hiking track, I was sold! The race was very very well organised, a fully marked course with tape every few hundred metres and reflective strips for the night. Plus the Hume & Hovell walking track signs with their direction arrows. The directions leading up to the race were great, locations were made clear enough even for someone not from the area and we scoped out a couple of the aid stations early on, just to make sure mum (s...