ANSW Short Course XC - The Crest

First race back from GC is the Aths NSW Short Course XC event at The Crest, in Bankstown. The course is as per below:


The event was two four km laps. I hitched a lift down with Mohammed and Jim from the squad, and later learned that we managed to avoid a major hold up on the M5 East due to a truck breakdown that delayed a few people.

Felt fine throught the warm-up, although a bit stiff through the drills and stride outs. Went with spikes - the course was very slick in places with a shallow layer of mud through some sections, particularly one fairly steep downhill bit, and with only a 100 metre or so tarmac section it was a simple choice.

The course started from the grass infield of the athletics track, used the outside bend and headed on the grass alongside the main straight, out the back gate and headed out beside the soccer grounds. It cut back on to the path, then turned left into the carpark for the only tarmac section, which quickly became gravel/soil/mud. A right turn saw the course run down the back fences of some homes bordering the course, and this was a quite treacherous slick section, fairly steeply downhill - there were falls in the women's race through here.

A right turn brought you alongside a road bordering the south edge of the course, and along here the course would rise and fall. The surface varied in quality, runners needing to be watchful of damp and muddy sections, and in places the camber combined with the lack of grip often saw you nearly forced over to run on the road, which of course invited disqualification. There was a right kink, before a 90 degree right and a short, sharp climb before ducking through a gate to continue north east within the boundaries of the park, where the surface became your more traditional trail.
At the northwest corner of the park there was a right turn and a short, nasty little climb up on the edge of a rugby field before we diverted off into the bush section again where the course dived downhill into a gentle left turn. This headed up hill and doubled back on to itself with a left turn heading back to the athletics track. We trailed along the south edge, between the athletics field and the hockey grounds, with a diversion around a grass square, a short sharp climb and hard off camber left turn to re-enter the athletics field.

Do that twice, the second time, finishing on the track, and you had 8km. The Garmin said 7.96, so I'd say it was pretty darned close to 8km.

Race was fairly straightforward. I settled in behind Royworlds, and we swapped positions here and there through the first lap. He got past me early in the second lap and eased away with a strong back half to the event. I ran pretty close to even splits, making up a few positions through the last two km (although one RBH runner I had passed beat me with a sprint in the last hundred metres - nothing I could do about it). I really fought it out on the last lap, the marathon apparent in the uphills. The spikes were a big help, as I could run pretty well any line, rather than being forced into picking dry lines like the flat shod runners. Finished in 29:31, which was pleasing as I was really only looking for sub 30 minutes, and underlined how well the recovery from Gold Coast has been going. Finished 52nd, and eighth Strider home. I think we ended up with silver in the open men and women and the men's 45+. Not sure on the others, I think we would have had a pretty strong B-Grade result if we had enough numbers.

An enjoyable run. We were all mud-spattered at the end - some people's new shoes ended up pretty filthy! SW was very pleased with my performance backing up from Gold Coast, saying it looked like I was in the middle of moving up a level, which is probably true.