a token trail run

To avoid any sibling rivalry in later years today starts with a picture of AJ because, once again, I ran light today and didn't take a camera(phone.)

I thought I'd better do one half decent trail run before the month is out. Had I not been heading out on a trail run when I should have been getting my entry for this year's Six Foot Track submitted I may have done fewer miles but more off road. C'est la vie. My game plan for this weekend was 2 runs with a nice 24hr break between them and more than the weeknight sleep between today's outing and tomorrow's commute. So that meant today I would be running in the heat of the day. While that does suck a bit, the fact is that the middle of the day has the lowest humidity and up to a point I will take heat over humidity. So it was breakfast by the beach, home to cut the lawns, stick around to say hi to a couple of friends who were popping around and then out for a run as the kids went down for the lunchtime snooze.

I'm a bit over all this road running so wanted to get onto a trail. It would make a nice change and I figured the rougher terrain would be better for the legs than pavement pounding. Plan A was to do an old favourite trail that I have done many times before when training for Six Foot. I used to do it from the other end before we moved. Today I thought I could do it out and back. Then I thought that was a bit dull, so I decided to run around to what was the start and do it one way. I'd hit a bit of fire trail on the way out and then have a nice cruisy downhill to the start at Davidson Park. I was giving the Nikes a day off in the hope that they'd be dry tomorrow morning. So it was the Salomons-I-am-not-yet-bonded-with and my North Face shorts that I knew would be soaked and heavy after a few km. I chose them not because I knew they wouldn't chafe but because I knew pretty much everything else had. Vaseline was applied and a small tub slipped in my pocket.

It was pretty warm when I departed and the sun was almost directly overhead. But it wasn't too stuffy and I made reasonable progress along the firetrail and then to the start of the proper trail section. I did the first 10km in a smidge under 54mins which is slow (15mins from my best!) but acceptable all things considered.

I entered the Garrigal National Park just by Roseville Bridge and took the steps up to the trailhead. It seemed more open than I remembered and as though some of the trees had died off. Odd. The air had puddles of humidity but was surprisingly cool (that is a relative) which was a pleasant surprise. I've done this run a few times when the valleys between the climbs have been really quite oppressive. It was quiet on the trail. I passed a family of three walkers,  2 joggers and a guy walking with his kid.

....if this post ends rapidly it will be because my keyboard is that latst bit of technology to hate me...the bloody cursor keeps jumping about and I find myself typing in the middle of a section 2 paragraphs back...very irritating...where was I?

I made OK progress but was not the rock-hopping-mountain-goat of old. OK, there is a large dollop of poetic licence there; I was not keen on taking any big drops on my weary - but better than yesterday - legs. The track basically follows middle harbour and has a couple of decent climbs that are part walk and part rock scramble. The final big climb, up Timber Getters I did walk most of. Two reasons; it is fucking seep and running it is just silly, and it is the only place I have seen a Brown Snake. Note the capitals; a Brown Snake is considered nasty even by Australian standards and is not just a snake that happens to be brown.

But today was snake free. In fact it was wildlife-lite from beginning to end. The trail was fairly dry after yesterday's rain with just a few muddy puddles. I got back to Seaforth Oval and the end of the trail at about 19.5km which was a bit short of what I wanted. I refilled the water bottle and crossed th Wakehurst Parkway to run a bit of the mountain bike circuit before heading for home in a little under 25km.

I didn' feel like too much of a slacker. Another couple of milestones reached - today I passed my 2011 Janathon total and went through 500km for the month. Gotta be pleased with that.

And my leg feels much better. And that picture wasn't taken today - I was travelling light - but is from the trail. See how far down the water looks? The trail goes down there on both sides. I told you there were climbs!

(apologies for the extra overhead of having to go to Garmin Connect from RFO if you want to see the course map and profile. I have now, officially, given up on trying to upload anything to RFO and am just logging there with a link in the notes. RFO continues to astonish me.)