The Galston Gut Buster

I ran the Galston Gut Buster last year, in its inaugural year, and had put my 2015 entry in...I don't know when. If I'd been paying more attention at the time then I may have thought twice about entering, what with this year's race being 15 days after Six Foot. But hey, there you go. It had probably been late and I'd probably had a couple of common-sense disabling beers. I'd went alright last year, finishing the 20km course in 1hr 50min and coming over the line behind the first woman, Suzi Heaton. I tell anyone who will listen that I was "second fastest woman." I'm a bit over the hill and will never pace high in one these events. But to come anywhere close to the top of the woman's field is, I think, quite an achievement. There are some incredibly good female runners out there and I usually get smoked.

I'd pulled up OK after Six Foot. A little bruised but the legs were working well enough for a run on day 3 and 4 after the event. My plan, if you can call it that, was to have a reasonably restful fortnight, but not so restful that my recovering muscles would pull me all out of shape. I have a theory that if I stop running for too long my body will mysteriously morph into something that doesn't run quite as well. If I stop aching I lose my magic powers. Or something.

Things didn't quite work out like that. I had an absolute bastard of a week, and on a pre-race-beer-free six days I turned to my main stress reliever and ran on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Far from ideal training, but I felt OK and figured that the Gut Buster is only a half so I'd be fine. That does sound a little arrogant but it isn't meant to, rather that I was backing up a 45k race with one under half the distance.

Of course the Galston Gut Buster isn't called gut buster for no reason. It's a hilly thing and the organisers are quite upfront in describing bits of it as "brutal" and saying they think it is possibly toughest half in Australia. I was still treating it with the respect it deserves.

I'd had a relaxing Saturday. Took the dog for a swim, then the girls to gymnastics and a swim, bought some beer - a man needs to rehydrate after a race - and then relaxing. A nana nap, Big Hero 6 and big plate of pasta for dinner and the day was done. The early-early night was put off by a call from work, which gave me some work to do and a brief mental wobble, but my bag was packed and I was in bed at around 9:30 and asleep about a minute later. Alarms set for 04:55am, firmly in the stupid-o-clock category.

Other than getting up and letting the dog out to have a pee, at around 03:30 when he started knocking a paw on the door and woke me up, I had a reasonable night's sleep and was up with the alarm. Glass of water, muesli bar, banana, bimble about, check and recheck kit to OCD standard and I left home at about 05:20. Still stupid-o-clock. Drove to Hornsby Aquatic and Leisure Centre, registered, picked up bib, went back to car and listened to some music. I was sorely tempted to grab 30minutes more sleep but the risk of missing the start was waaaaay too high. With 30min to go until the 07:15 start I went back to the race HQ for the usual preparations. Toilet, skull a Gatorade 20min before the start, strip down and drop bag, make my way to the start line.

I lined up fairly close to the front of the 292 runner field as the main marshall went through his comedy course introduction. Don't follow number 78, he doesn't know what an arrow means, make sure you don't fall of the pace and do get clear of the rifle range with time to spare. He was quite good. And then we were off.

The race started with a very short, shallow descent before hitting a couple of bastard climbs to get my calfs screaming good and early; seemed a bit soft to walk the ups so early. After a brief road section we dropped onto the trails for a quickish section down to the Steele Bridge in the Berowra valley at 4.5km. This is the site of the only aid station on the run; the course comes back over the bridge at 14.5km. I'd had none of the bottle of Gatorade I was carrying so didn't stop. I headed over the bridge and started the 2km climb up to the ridge line. The climb was a slog in parts, so there was a bit of power walking. At the top I started 6km of rolling hills on a mixture of fire trail and single-track. It's lovely through there. I managed to scrape a load of skin off of my right arm squeezing through a chute between a couple of rock faces, my only injury this time out.

At around 10km I had a couple of swigs of Gatorade, the plan had been to refill at the bridge on the return. But it was a low-humidity, cool morning and I wasn't feeling dehydrated. I took the 2km drop to the bridge and brought up 14-ish-km feeling pretty good. I had half my drink left and figured I could knock out the next 7km on the remainder. After the bridge I took the undulating couple of km to the start of the climbs home. I'd got a little lost last year and took an ever-so-slightly wrong turn this year; rather than running across the top of a rock I jumped off it before realising I should have stayed on top. My own fault for following another runner, who only minutes earlier I'd told I didn't want to overtake because I didn't want to get lost. Oh the irony.

A pissed-off scramble up to the top of the rock and I was back off and running, managing to pick off a couple of guys who had not jumped from the rock and had overtaken me. The km from 17 to 19 were an up and over then I hit the ascent to the finish. It's a climb that helps give the event its name and guarantees your calfs are burning at the end. I made my up the Heritage Steps, 262 rock steps that climb 56m then took another set of steps to the finish line, a change from last year that saw me finish at by the Aquatic Centre having completed a half.

Scores on the doors - unofficial as the event isn't chipped and the results aren't out yet - I finished in 1:55:31. First girl (for a change) and 3sec/km quicker than last year. There was a 3wk break after Six Foot last year, so I'm putting this down as a new PB.

Sal and the kids plus Josie and Jason, who live nearby, were there to cheep me over the line. Sal has a cracking piece of video that has around 0.3sec of me running and somewhat more of empty space with the soundtrack of kids being shouted at. We hung for a while, before Sal took the kids off to a aprty and I made my way to Long Reef for a celebratory pie, figuring it was still a little too early for a beer.

Then I went home and had a beer.

Pretty pleased with things today.