A lovely big weekend

On Saturday I did the Manly to Palm Beach 30k Fatass run. It was a beautiful day, the views are truly wonderful and I never get tired of running near the ocean. I hooked up with another girl right at the start. She kept up a pace that was not feeling easy at all for me and I kept thinking I should tell her to go on ahead, but I figured she was free to do that if she wanted. In the end we ran the whole way together and it was really nice to have the company. We were only going about 5.30 pace but I was struggling a bit, I haven't done a 30k run before 6ft. Its quite hilly too. We finished in 2.47 and I was definitely spent at the end. I think I would have been a lot slower if I had been running alone. I will need to do a fair few more of these if I want to run a marathon soon. It was a great feeling to finish at Palm Beach and when we were driving back down the peninsular it seemed like a very long way to have run. I wasn't at all tempted to do the 60k return trip, but the option to do a full marathon distance and return to the Newport Arms hotel next year could be a winner.

On Sunday was the Working Week Series 8 Hour Mtb race at Appin. I had organised my friends Jocie and Simone to do a team of 3. It was freezing and foggy when we arrived and there was a lot of muttering about a "very technical" course. It was a 9.5k loop which none of us had ridden before. I did the first lap and as usual it was very slow and congested for the first half of the lap but it got better in the second half. There were some pretty challenging sections, and plenty of stuff I had to walk, but overall it wasn't half as bad as it was made out to be and I really, really enjoyed it. It was almost all single track which is just so fun. Jocie was next up and I started straight into the eating and drinking. Jocie came back from her lap with a big smile, but she'd had a big stack on the way around and was bleeding. Fortunately Simone didn’t notice that before she went off for her lap! Jocie had nasty cuts, grazes and bumps on every limb and a very sore shoulder, but was still keen to keep going (crazy girl). Simone returned in one piece and said one lap was enough for her. It was my turn again and I was a little more nervous this time thinking of Jocie, but had another very enjoyable lap and rode a few bits that I had failed at on the first lap.

Jocie and I swapped off turns for another 2 laps before she decided that considering her numerous injuries, it was sensible to call it a day. Now that our team had gone from 3 to 2 to 1, I could have stopped too. But I was really enjoying myself and the course and not feeling tired at all. I felt amazingly good actually considering the long run the day before and my lack of mtb training. Oh well, make hay while the sun shines, so I kept going. After my 5th lap my hands and wrists were very sore. This is because I grip the handlebars and brakes way too hard, which is very poor form. I was going to stop then as there wasn't any "point" going on - we were not going to win our category or anything like that. But there was a nagging voice in my head saying - this is an 8 hour race, you need to ride for 8 hours. Plus I was definitely still enjoying myself and had a few more scores to settle with the course, so I went back for one more lap. I was so glad I did because this time I managed to do both the creek crossings perfectly for the first time. There were still 3 bits I couldn't do (a biggish drop-off, a biggish step-up and a tricky rocky climb) but I had improved on lots of other bits which was just what I was hoping I would get out of this race. Plus a tidy 55k of mtb in the legs. I couldn't ask for more. :)

By the time we got back to Sydney I was very very verrrrrry tired. I crawled into bed, didn’t set the alarm and slept for 12 hours.