Australia Day 100K 2016

After Coburg 24 Hour in April 2014 I decided to retire from stupid long races and just do shorter ultras. (A week after this I may have bought tickets for Coast to Kosci). I toyed with finding a fun scenic trail race to focus on but after years of chasing times and distances in 24 hour races it didn’t really motivate me. Finally after much day dreaming I decided on having a crack at a sub 8 hour 100K the minimum qualifier for the Australian World Championships team. Back in the days before Facebook I had posted on Coolrunning in response to AURA releasing their World Championships benchmarks that the 24 hour mark of 200K was much easier than the 8 hour 100K. This appeared prophetic as over the next 7 or 8 years I ran 200K+ 6 times and the closest I got to 8 hours was a 8:59 for 100K. (Interestingly we’ve had some runners, even low 7 hour runners fail to hit 200K). Over the last 20 months I made a few changes to my training to get me ready for a crack at the 8 hour goal. My first test of progress was the WTF 50 Miler in 2014. I decided to race hard from the start and try and hang on. The result of 7:15 gave me an estimated 100K of about 8:15 which was encouraging. I then realised I had signed up for this 240K run through the mountains. I hadn’t done any walk or serious hill training in recent months so a crash course had me on the startline for one last long race. Unfortunately I picked up some injuries at C2K and was unable to race in the Australia Day Ultra (ADU) in its first year. My next chance was Kep 100K. It was never going to be an easy course for a sub 8 (though Josh Garratt managed to do it) but I gave it a red hot go and ran 8:37 despite 1000m elevation gain. Then it happened again and I signed up for another long race!!! This time the Bunbury 24 Hour drew me in to its vortex and I again pulled up sore. After a couple of months recovery I was back into training and snuck one of the last entries into ADU just as things started to turn around on the injury front. Training went well with 2 simple policies: run heaps of hills and try and do 100K a week. We were lucky to be coming off a holiday on the east coast leading into the race so when my alarm went off at 1am my GPS (still on Sydney time) told me it was 4am and just a normal long run day. I had a plan to run about 4:30min/k until halfway and stay with Rick Cooke if he didn’t go faster than this. This was going fine with additional company from Tony Smith, Ben Harris and Tina Major until Rick pulled out about 30K. After this I ran most of the next 20K to-ing and fro-ing with Tina. After halfway I anticipated a mentally hard lap knowing that I was running alone with the promise of an Ipod after 5 laps. Times show that I dropped about 4min on this lap. I resolved to keep a positive attitude which wasn’t hard as I was still feeling good and had been looking forward to this race for over a year. Getting the Ipod after 5 laps or 62.5K gave me a boost and I sang a few tunes as another lap got ticked off. I tried not to think about how far I had left and almost didn’t think about it all day. When I ran my quickest marathon I ran each K individually just focussing on the process and hoping to get good feedback with a positive number after each beep. I did a similar method at ADU, but with the importance of fuelling and hydration as the mercury neared 30C, I would miss a lot of splits especially when I was heading towards Aid 2 from either end carrying a bottle. Coming in to finish 6 laps or 75K I knew I was tracking close to an 8 hour finish but felt I was still running well and should just stay in the moment and see what I needed to do the last 5-10K for a sub 8. As I hit the grass for my second last turn I felt like I lost all momentum on the different surface softened by recent rain. I made my turn at a slow pace and then the 25K runners were heading past me. About 6 went by and I had no rhythm to go with them. Once back on the path my speed didn’t return and I clocked a 5:31K my slowest thus far and equal slowest of the race. I clawed my way up to the nearest 25K runners seeing my sub 8 chances slipping away and gradually pulled away as I got closer to 5min Ks. As I came to the close of my 7th lap I saw Mick Francis almost a lap behind. In his 100th ultramarathon it was great to have 3 of the ultra runners Mick has mentored over the years, myself, Nathan Fawkes and Tina Major in the same race. I thought how Mick has been there for all my breakthrough runs. Having met him during my first Half Marathon after seeing his Trans Australia exploits on GWN, Mick was also in Wales for my first national 24 hour team. Chasing the local heroes (Mick’s) WA record was my main goal heading into that race and I was very surprised to snag a silver medal along the way. Two years later Mick was at Rottnest for his 100th marathon when I had my marathon breakthrough finally getting below 4min/k average. So with all this in mind it seemed only appropriate I should go sub 8. As I turned onto the grass for my final U-turn I lost valuable speed again and knew the goal was starting to get tight. Concentrating on getting my fuel and fluid from Bel who was crewing for me I didn’t get an accurate final split but was encouraged that I had more than an hour to get through the last lap. Not long after though a piece of dodgy maths cost me any chance of sub 8 when seeing I needed to run sub 46 min for the last 10K I contented myself that anything under 8:10 would be OK. My GPS was initially reading a little long but seemed to get more accurate as the day went on. However on about the 6th lap I noticed a 3:51 K split and realised I would be out due to a GPS detour as I was barely running 5min/k at this stage. I later checked and was about 500m up on where I should be. Sometime later I double added the 500m thinking I was 1K up and wouldn’t finish until 101K. Under these circumstances I had a fairly relaxed last lap. I made sure I drank plenty of water as I was starting to get thirsty between aid stations and tried to keep everything in check and guarantee my race win and course record. There was to be no sprint finish because the numbers didn’t justify it, but with 1K to go my sister came out to meet me. I told her she would have to follow 20m behind as we weren’t allowed pacers. I then realised I might be able to go under 8:04 which was the winning time at Centennial Park last year and was able to lift the pace surprising myself as the GPS said 4:45/k whenever I looked at it. I felt very satisfied as I hit the park throwing off my Ipod to soak in the support and as I hit the grass I realised I wouldn’t go sub 8:04 but realised I didn’t know the seconds of the CP winner so aimed to get as close as possible. Finally crossing the line in 8:04:13 I later learnt I was 6 seconds quicker. Unfortunately my sister was unable to keep up and didn’t see me finish 