It Is Finished...

No more races till WA in December. Managed to complete North Face 50km Duo and Newton 30km runs.


I just created my own record. I had doubted whether I would even be able to start today after Saturday's gruelling 25km of trail. My thoughts of the trail? My goodness! I think I will improve more if I can overcome the trails! North Face lived up to its repute of tough runs. And Saturday was no different. I can only take my visor, my tri top and my shoes off for the blokes who did the 100km! I was barely surviving on the trails despite it being only 25km!


Probably made a mistake with creatine on Friday night. I havent been taking it for the past 6 months. And because of the weekend's crazy runs, I thought I should keep myself from hitting the wall. Turned out that the creatine was a terrible mistake. My HR shot up so high during my warm up run from home to Macritchie Reservoir. Throughout the whole run, HR just refuse to come down. Not to mention the horrible queasy feeling in the guts after consuming it on Friday that last till Saturday morning. Lesson learnt: dont try anything new before a race. I have consumed before but probably long absence had resulted in this. And this lesson was taken for granted by myself. Learnt it the hard way. Yet again.


Back to the run. As it got deeper into the woods, oh yes, literal meaning to that statement. It was like getting into a blackhole and totally unsure of what was going to happen. I was pretty familiar with the terrain up till the 6-7km mark. The moment it hit unfamiliar grounds, I became more cautious with descents. And the ascents, were manageable till it hit severe climbs, which I told myself, it was of no use trying to run them down (or up in this case). It would be pure waste of energy. So yes, I had to walk up the crazy slopes. Not one, not two, but perhaps 4 or 5. I cant recall. Weather was really humid and on top of that, the heat was quite relentless.


Waited for my partner a couple of times. Probably in all of 15min. After the 20th km mark, I decided that I should just continue on my own. Returned in a time of 3:18 thereabouts.


The North Face run revealed a new territory that appealed to me. I like the challenge. It had made road run looked simple...


When I got home, I hung up my legs and snoozed for a while. I was really hammered big time...

***

Newton 30km run this morning. It was planned to be an easy pace run for myself. I just wanted to complete and save some space for training next week. And having done North Face, I had a good reason not to go hard? Hmm... not that I am able to go hard anyway. Go hard to my limited ability, perhaps.


Anyway, 1st 20km I did about 2:09. Could have shaved off 5-6min coz I needed to get to the toilet. Of all times, I needed to go during the run. Cursed were the noodles I ate at 130am after Retrolicious Concert. Oh yes. Stood for 4 hours and my back was aching. More about the concert another time.


The last 10km I completed in an hour. So all in, 3:09. Weather was great. Windy, cooling. No climbs, no heat. Simply fabulous. Definitely less punishing than North Face. Met Nigel who did in 2:50+ and Enrico did in 2:30+. Simply awesome athletes! And Mok Ying Ren, the winner of the Men's category? A whopping 1:47! Which planet is he from? What does he eat? How does he train? I have no idea. And its perfectly fine with me, I have no wish (nor able) to get to that level. I still need my family to be with me. Triathlon training sessions are only a subset of my life. I will not want to give up everything else to TRY to be at the podium. That would not be what I want in life. Too much of any thing just is not healthy.


All in all, having clocked 55km over 2 consecutive days, this had given me some confidence in tackling future sessions. I would not have thought I could do it, even up till the event. The hurdle was crossed. Now looking for the next monster...