Finally ...

Finally; because at last I got out for a proper run last Sunday (30th) I feel like I'm doing something and have some motivation. This is a bit belated but better than not at all.

Myself and a mate (Andrew Townshend) left the car at the Glasshouse lookout. Before we set off, Andrew set me up with a heart rate monitor and GPRS. He’s studying a PHD at the moment that’s heavily focused on the effects of endurance on runners in particular and I think he was using me as a bit of a guinea pig! In all seriousness, I found the information really useful (and reassuring) when I got it back.

We headed down the Woodford – Beerburrum Road toward checkpoint 6 (GH Trail runners will know where it is) which is pretty straight forward undulating fire road. From there, we set out on the GH Beerwah loop.

This was a new experience for Andrew as though he is an accomplished runner himself (way beyond my capabilities) he hasn’t experienced GH trails terrain first hand as far as I know. Having run down and walked up the rollercoaster type valley that you go through before heading right in to the woods that precede the long undulating straight that follows the powerlines (not to be confused with the powerlines).

This is a really pleasant run and I was looking forward to travelling it in relaxed mode having covered it twice before, the most recent during the 50k race at GH 100 and the first time being a night run with a few of the Cool Running guys some weeks before that .

As we were half way across, we came across a farmer in his land cruiser and asked where we’d been and had we seen any of his cows. We hadn’t, though only ten minutes earlier Andrew had thought he had seen a black and white one crouching in the woods. It turned out to be a rock which was fortunate because had it been a crouching cow it could only have had mischief on its mind. Anyway, thy guy asked where we were heading and to look out for some black and white ones (spooky eh?!). I’m not sure what he expected us to do with them if we did come across them.

Anyway, this section is over too quickly and we turned back right into the bush. We went through here pretty well and came to the first climb pretty quickly and I remember Andrew commenting on how Ian Javes (Glasshouse Trails race director) must be something of a sadist. I expressed what I was thinking which was pretty much, “Wait until you sees the climb out back to the fire road!”

Once you get to that climb and out it’s a steady few km’s back to the lookout. It took about an hour and a half and I was looking forward to seeing the data from the system I was hooked up to.

The plan next week is to park a car at Beerburrum as well as the lookout and once we complete the Beerwah loop to continue down to CP1a and then to the school. Havent suggested this to Andrew yet so we’ll see.