The Great Nosh

I ran The Great Nosh this morning, a 15km bush run from Lindfield to Seaforth. And very nice it was too. And if I were not knackered and of to bed now I'd probably write it up. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow at work...

It is tomorrow but I didn't write anything up at work. In fact, thinking back on the day, I did pretty well bugger all at work. I did pop out at lunch to buy Sal a new merino jumper; the old one was destroyed by Rowlf yesterday night. I think I will name him "Homework". As in "the dog ate my homework." The name "McQueen" didn't last long. Back to the Nosh.

So having awoken to the sound of pissing rain I was glad to find it dry at a little after 07:00 when I walked to Artarmon station, a kilomtre or so and 20mins away. A nice little warm up that, plus the 20mins at the other end, a mere two stops north. Home to the start is only a handful of km and I was tempted to run it...but...nah.

I arrived silly early as evidenced by the hardly anyone there. I registered and had 90mins to the start, so I wandered around as the crowd gathered, heading for the start line at a little before 10:00. I met Milov on the way to the start, had a brief chat in which he told me my Garmin 305 was unlikely to work which, I am glad to say, turned out to be wrong. Sorry Milov, well done Garmin.

My plan was to take it relatively easy and maybe take a few pictures along the way that I could match up to my GPX track an map on flickr. As it happened the race started with a gun so, of course, I belted off with the others near the front of the pack. I will have to go back, because the Two Creeks Track, that the race starts by heading down, is very nice. Exposed vertical rock, nice drop offs, very green. National Park, so you'd expect it to be pretty. Plenty of picture opportunities. There were loads of cockatoos as well. Loads. The race stared at a decent pace and kept on that way. It was a mix of fire trail, single track and some really narrow scramble sections. Slippery rocks, hands and knee stuff. Not a lot of that though. Despite the rain there were relatively few puddles, but as expected on Aussie trails it was rocky ad you had to watch your step. Only a couple of km in I passed one of the real whippets, sitting nursing a twisted ankle. Kilometre 9 is the bastard. OK, nothing like 6ft track nasty, but very up, up up. After that is kinda flattens and the last couple of km are relatively flat. Not over fast though, cos I was feeling a bit shot after the climb, and where the fire trail looked like it had been tended to recently you run over chopped twigs and leaves. Springy, but I found it slow.

A marshal at 13km counted me as 46 and a guy on my shoulder as 47. The guy on my shoulder did not get past and I did not catch up with anyone in front, so my 1hr 17min 01sec placed me 46th. Happy with that. Also happy to see that the GPS tracked me at 15.01km. Not bad eh? The end was quaint. The whole thing is rather old school. Crossing the line I was handed a post-it note with my time written on it. I took that to a tent where my name was written on a list and I was handed a basic certificate. Nice.



I was feeling a bit spaced at the end of the run and decided to walk to Neutral Bay for some food. I had a hankering for Maisy's Nachos As I wandered slowly off on what turned out to be 8km walk. Milov, on his way to Clovelly, far farther away, ran past me. Ultramarathon man.

Today, other than tight outer-shins, I've pulled up OK.