It's been a few months since I last updated this blog and if I were to die then it would quite likely stay un-updated (assuming Ghosts don't blog): hence I am alive since I am posting.
More pertinently I'm still alive after running the Mt Lowry challenge at silly o'clock (9) this morning. What is the Mt Lowry challenge, and why was I running it?
About two months ago I started training for a marathon (which I still haven't officially entered yet btw) and have been gradually over the weeks building up my mileage - except for the week when a kidney bruise, kindly donated to me by some concrete stairs, kept me indoors).
There are other runners at my work who do the running when not working at their work and go out at lunchtimes. I was invited along for some of these sessions but declined (declined n - the act of not replying to an email) for various reasons:
- I despise running at luchtimes when the sun is at its fullest and every other cretin and his wife are all running the same route as you as there is only one route you can possibly do at lunch time and still claim to have done a full eight hours of work while sweating uncontrollably for four of these hours because your body has fully committed itself to sweat mode and will only stop when you've lost half your body weight through fluid loss and your kidneys stop working.
- Lunchtime is when you have lunch - the clue is in the name.
- My collegues would either be slower than me and hence be a burden, or more likely be faster and therefore be gits. I like running at my own pace where I'm free to stop/throw up without interference.
Anyway being persistent they finally got me to agree to sign up for a race when I was drunk by exploiting the male 'Marty-McFly weakness' through implied chickeness - the argument being that I was already doing the miles for my training so I'd find it easy.
The chosen event was the Mt Lowry challenge, a 12km run with a 400m climb over difficult and undulating terrain. About as different from running on the flat as you can get (within the context of running).
Brian - the ringleader of the tormentors (an album by Morrisey if I remember) - prepared for the event by doing a number of pre challenge feats of strengths. One race called the Gutbuster which I refused to partake in since I've had my gut for quite a while and have grown quite attached to it. He also did a couple of test runs along the race route to scope out the terrain and plan how to attack the race - I also refused to go on these. It was from descriptions of these test runs that I got the impression I'd be running up sheer cliffs, scrambling down rocky canyons, and having epic sword fights with pointy demons throughout the extend of the course.
Other Scottish Andy (who I suspect may in-fact be me from the future) prepared by doing an ironman.
I wasn't looking forward to the race at all, partly because I had to get up at six, partly because I imagined a climb so steep that I'd die wheezing like an anaphylactic in a snickers factory, but mostly because I'd died so badly running the previous weekend. My preparation for the race was also less than sensible: on Wednesday I beat my outdoor 10km record while battling 50km/hour gusts of wind, and on Thursday I ran up Mt Vic.
The weather wasn't too bad for the race, not at all windy, and only a very slight drizzle which welcome - better rain than the sun burning you to a crisp. I was pleasantly surprised by how, not easy, but not disastrously difficult, the initial climb up to the ridge was. I managed to gain a number of places and more or less power up the hill - I'm guessing a competitiveness steak helped with that.
The run along the ridge was longer than I expected and seemed to climb more than it declimbed. Some of it was hard going, some of it was excellent fun as it was all under canopy along a twisty narrow path so you got an awesome sense of speed - when you weren't walking to catch breath.
The descent was very tricky in places but again I'd expected much worse from descriptions by Brian.
Speaking of which Brian was last seen passing a collegue on the main ridge confidently boasting that he'd drank nothing but gin for the past 24 hours (or words to those effect) only to be overtaken a few minutes later covered in mud, limping, and muttering incoherently about the horrible pain - presumably God smote him for the sin of pride in the interim.
I finished with an awesome sprint to achieve a time of 1 earth hour 39 minutes (also earth). Very happy with that as I was expecting 2 hours plus.
Saw Jermain from the Flight of the Concords on the way home, then fell asleep during an episode of Deadwood. Good days.
0 comments:
Post a Comment