Thursday 24 May 2012

Xterra Run Shakespeare Park

Over the course of my life I have entered 2 running races  (this is excluding all the cross country races I had to do at school). Shakespeare Park Xterra trail run was the third.

Having never been to this particular point of the country, I was in for a surprise. Shakespeare Park is simply stunning. After kicking myself for never coming to this spectacular spot i got ready for my maiden Xterra trail run. I am a massive fan of trail running so was pretty excited about the prospect.
I rocked up to the race briefing after annihilating a flask of coffee.  It was go time. After the briefing had wrapped up, i joined the 200 strong crowd trying to cross the Doc mats to wash shoes with detergent. The start line was a further 500m up the road and just as i got through the wash station the gun went and we were off. I looked back at the 100 odd people who hadn’t yet made it over the mats and laughed “Suckers”.

After making my way through some of the “more fortunate” participants I quickly realised I was running quite fast and the acid started descending on me. I got to excited! The trail soon turned awesome as we went into a forested creek area. This was awesome fun. A big chain of dudes smashing through the forest. It kind of felt like a bike race for a second. Pretty soon we popped out on the beach and the adventure began.

A short section of beach running quickly led into rocks. Now I’ve always secretly rated myself as having some rock hoping skills. I have always enjoyed a good frolic from rock to rock, but this shit was a whole new level. Endurance running over this sort of terrain was intense. It required the same sort of concentration as taking a calculus exam.  My ankles aren’t the most structurally out there. If fact on could say they are comparable to Snoop Dog; Loose and loves to roll. This meant that I had to concentrate pretty hard.

A couple of the guys around us formed a little group of 4 who stuck together for most of the coastal section. We were catching others up and passing them so we must have been going alright. In saying that the few guys ahead disappeared into the distance. Maybe they had done this before.

Every now and then we would get a small break in the form of a sandy section. Now ordinarily i would never look forward to running on beach sand, but this was faster than skipping over rocks and allowed some mental relaxation. Shortly after coming off the rocks and onto some sand, no sooner had i relaxed, my gumbie ankle folded beneath me. Bugger. My buddies left me and shit was looking dire. My rock hopping confidence was shattered and i had to nurse myself back into it.  I soon caught back up to the boys and the show was back on the road albeit with a little less power coming out of my left ankle.

There were some tricky sections where you had no choice but to go waist deep into the surf to get around the rocky cliffs. This made the shoes rather uncomfortable but hey, better than mountain bike shoes. The final part of the race was a small lap of the interior of the peninsula. It was hilly. It was difficult. I spotted a guy ahead of me and worked away at him until I was about 50m back before going onto the final beach section. Unfortunately I had nothing left and could not pull off the sprint finish. I am embarrassed and realised I have let The Quest down. Next time

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