Two Bays

‘The central reason I was at Western States was to push hard with other folks who were capable of bringing out my best performance and taking me to places I’ve never been before. Exploring that unknown territory is a crucial aspect of fully engaging in life.’ Anton Krupicka http://runningtimes.com/Print.aspx?articleID=20048

Sunday January 16: Two Bays Trail Run – 56km

I read an article by Anton Kupricka about his run in the 100 mile Western States Ultra. The above quote was how he finished the article and I loved it. I knew it was something that I could use in the Two Bays run.

Two Bays was really tough. Even though I have run further before, on this day I was definitely taken to places I’d never been before. The thing that got me was how quickly it all went pear shaped for me in a physical and mental sense.

Going into the halfway point I was feeling fantastic. Two Bays is an out and back course and with 380 of the 500 runners doing the 28km option, the turn around point for me, was the finish line for many and was buzzing with great excitement. There were young kids cheering in mum or dad. There were big smiles everywhere. It was awesome, only problem for me was I still had 28km to go, over 3 hours to go and lots of pain to go.

The out and back course can do your head in and as soon as I turned I started feeling anything but fantastic. A few kms into the return and I was cactus. Still 25km to go and I just didn’t want to be there. So there I was being taken to places I’ve never been before. When I first read the quote I thought of it in a positive sense. I didn’t think the unknown territory was going to be like this.

At the next checkpoint one of my running mates, Gully caught up with me. I asked how he was feeling and the answer...Fantastic! I’d gone out too hard and I was wishing I was in his shoes. Gully stayed with me for a bit and got me going before running ahead as he obviously had a fair bit in the tank. I was then running a bit, walking a bit but realised I would be out there forever if I didn’t change something. So the walking bits became shorter and strangely running actually started to feel like the better option. I looked at other runners around me and learnt a stack about how to dig yourself out of a hole.  At the final checkpoint I actually caught back up to Gully. We were both pretty shocked but my pacing throughout the event was all over the shop. Slowish and steady is Ultra Gold. Next time I’ll remember that, I hope.

From that point Gully and I ran together to the finish. At one point I said for Gul to run ahead and break 6 hours which he would have done on the bit. He said he couldn’t give a shizen about the time and we were going to finish together. So here was a bloke sacraficing his best so that I would achieve my best. Unreal.

The final stretch from the top of Arthur’s Seat seemed to take forever. But the vacuum effect started and the finish line drew us in. The smiles that I’d seen at the 28km finish were big but Gully and I were like Luna Park.

It’s amazing. Every ultra I’ve done has been exactly the same in two ways.

1)       At some point I question my ability and sanity. 2) I somehow make it to the finish and can’t wait for the next one.

The biggest cheer we got when we crossed the line was from our other runniing mate Seb. He did reasonably well too. He won the event and set a new race record by a 19 minutes. His running abilty is only matched by his modesty, so that’s enough on that inspirational champion.

For the record I think Gully and I stopped the clock somewhere aroung 6.14. Seb got home in 4.48.