Run > Race

Mount Solitary Ultra marathon - Garmin won't upload, but I have the information from Garmin Connect. Race report to come... so here it is:

So, on Wednesday night Bex and Anne decided that they would like to have a day together on Saturday, so I contemplated signing up for this 45km trail run up Mount Solitary (and another mountain...) Adam and a few guys from NRG were doing it. I put a message out on Facebook and one of the girls (Chantelle) agreed to sign up to... so we signed up at 11pm on Wednesday (entries close at midnight).

Then comes Saturday morning... picked up at 4.45 with Chantelle and Adam by Dave Murray, Martyn and Dave Madden. When we got to the race start we met Ian and Brett and Dave Brown (as well as some other trail runners we know). The race started at 7am and off we went. I ran with Brett and Chantelle for 1km and then left them to it. I dropped back to Adam and we were joined by Marty and Dave Murray. Great first 7km down to the base of Mount Solitary. Then we had 3km straight up 650m... that is pretty much a 22% gradient, which is steep. I felt it was getting to quiet , so Adam and I started singing the Lion King (Hakuna Matata) and we cheered some people up... I think! One of our kms (km10) took 24 minutes. That is slow. It was so steep we were literally on our hands and knees. Also, during this km Dave Murray was violently sick and so the rest of us went on while he tried to recover.

At the first top (not the real top) we met Dave Madden and Mike McGrath who were off to the side enjoying the views! They realised that we weren't waiting around for them, so they came back and took Marty off with them. That left me and Adam to work our way up the remaining 150m of ascent and then down the other side - again scrambling, with a portion where a rope was hooked up to kind of abseil... great fun! We met a guy from the Hunter Valley called Rob who then joined Adam and I for the next section. We got to the bottom of the Furber Steps in about 3:50 and then up we went. As we were climbing the 936 steps (I think) we overtook a few people and Rob was lagging behind. People coming down from the aid station kept telling us we were close - I did not believe any of them (I was counting the steps as we climbed). It was great to see Chantelle and Brett come down - it meant they were somewhere around 10 minutes ahead of us. Apparently they could hear me and Adam cheering and talking from quite a way off...

Anyway, up at the top we see Marty, Dave Madden and Mike McGrath all refuelling and getting ready for the next 21km. Rob comes to the top - says thanks for the company, but not to wait for him to come back down! Adam and I spend about 3 minutes here - water refill, swap for two new bottles and grab a couple of gels. Back down the stairs and happy as you like:-) loving all the interaction with other runners as they come up to the aid station. Then off down towards Leura Forest. Adam told me this was the end of TNF100 in reverse and therefore would be a fair amount of up to get back to the finish at the top of Kedumba.

I wasn't feeling great, but Adam was really good and kept me going for a while. We were pushing each other all the way to Jamison Creek at 37km - we were overtaking people by running the small ups and the flats and only walking if it was really steep. Then we started going up. This was hard... and I was really feeling it. Adam put his music on again and we had another little sing along - I can't remember what we were listening to this time. At about 40km Adam was looking really good and I was ruined. The week had caught up with me and I just couldn't push on even though I really wanted to. Adam was ready to go for sub 7 hours and I knew I couldn't do it. It was hard to see him go, but it was the right thing for both of us. So, I put my head down, gritted my teeth and kept going. All the while thinking I hope Adam does sub 7 and catches up with Marty and Dave Madden!

I kept going up Kedumba and it sucked. I was really struggling but I was still passing a couple of people and I wash't being caught by anyone Adam had dragged me past. The last 3km were as hard as any I have done in a long time - it was pretty barren and so few people and still mostly uphill. At the top of Kedumba I managed to look round and enjoy the view before dragging myself to the finish line in an unofficial time of 7:06:28.

A hard day out, but one of our guys was still out there - Dave Brown was going and we hadn't seen him in a while. It got to 30 minutes until cut off of 9 hours and we decided to send Dave Murray (Dave had pulled out at the 24km aid station as he was still being sick) to meet him and give him some encouragement to get home. Dave Murray got to the gate at the top of Kedumba and met Dave Brown and ran home with him. About 10 of us were there waiting for him and set up a guard of honour for him to cross the finish line. Dave Brown came in at about 8:50, comfortably within the cut off of 9 hours. What a great team performance from NRG and a pleasing finish all round.

1 5:40.5
2 5:43.9
3 5:33.9
4 5:45.7
5 6:00.1
6 7:35.1
7 8:14.7
8 13:16.7
9 15:11.5
10 24:31.2
11 12:15.6
12 15:08.2
13 12:10.1
14 12:23.9
15 15:23.4

2:44:54

16 9:28.3
17 7:25.9
18 7:12.5
19 7:56.2
20 7:55.6
21 9:39.8
22 11:42.0
23 13:07.0
24 14:07.9
25 8:45.5
26 8:10.1
27 8:04.4
28 10:45.8
29 7:45.4
30 7:17.9

2:09:24

31 5:55.3
32 6:03.3
33 7:42.2
34 8:36.6
35 5:57.7
36 6:41.5
37 6:50.6
38 10:12.2
39 9:05.8
40 8:51.5
41 10:25.3
42 11:40.1
43 7:28.9
44 9:09.0
45 7:29.6

2:12:06