I'd been hoping to do one of the Perth trail series, but it never really fit in over their summer series, so this one off winter run was a good fit. 3 weeks post marathon having taken things nice & easy, i thought I'd be up for a decent run.
The run was out at John Forrest national Park, and was very well organised by Bernadette Benson. I'd initially looked at the entry fee and thought it looked fairly high, but you could really see the effort and thoroughness. There was a Lord of the Rings theme, with all finishers getting a LOTR style ring, and impressive frodo lego winners trophies.
I started out at the back of the leading group, in 6th, but the early going was very technical single trail - i realised quickly that there is an art to running this sort of trail and that I dont possess it - I quickly fell off the back of the group. I was also a bit uncertain of my navigation in this section and found myself at the back of the second group, in 10th, at about 5k.
Just at this point the branch of a shrub hit my right eye and knocked my contact lens out of place (in fact when i took it out at the end of the race, it was in three pieces, so the lens may have saved me a corneal abrasion) - i ran the rest of the race with slightly blurry vision.
Things opened up a bit after this and i picked my way back to 6th. Unfortunately just having done this I rolled my ankle (inversion/lateral injury) and needed to hobble for 100m with 3 repassing me. Luckily it was a mild sprain and the heat/adrenaline allowed me to keep running. For the rest of the race I was very cautious about my right footfall position and really slowed down especially on the technical stuff.
Luckily I seemed to be doing better than most and moved into 5th. Soon thereafter Thomas bakowski overtook me - he had been well ahead but had got lost - so i'd actually been in 4th, now 5th again.
At the halfway mark I had 4th in my sight and gradually caught him - a guy named David. We ran together for a few km and i was feeling pretty happy to go on and finish 4th or 5th with him.
After a hill at 16k or so I looked back and saw that I'd dropped David, so i pushed on, knowing he'd tole me the last 4k was pretty much all downhill on wider firetrails. I pushed the pace a bit more here, although the ankle did start to give me a little curry, so I checked behind and with a bit of a gap slowed down. I was surprised to hear from a marshall at 1k to go that I was in 3rd - Thomas had got lost again. I cruised through to finish in 3rd.
Interestingly the first 2 guys were some way in front of me, and then there were 8 finishers in 3 minutes from 4th -11th. i suspect even had I not had the ankle issue or some early navigational issues, i still wouldnt have finished any higher up.
Unfortunately I had family commitments and couldn't stay for the presentations. James Roberts and Etienne Rodriguez were the first two finishers.
Overall it was a beautiful day for running, but I certainly need to practice trails if I want to run the full summer series at some point. For now, i have a swollen and sore right ankle - strapping and flat road/path runs only for me in the next week. The only positive of not running aerobically that hard is that I didnt have any stomach upest or fatigue issues later in the day.
