Fragged

RDO today, so I got out just before lunch to do a lap of the Pinnacles course around Gold Creek Reservoir. Well, that was the plan.

I hadn't done anything on the weekend. It was too wet and rain affected to ride on Saturday, and my back/hip were still pretty angry after Tuesday and Thursday's run, plus three straight days on my feet. Interesting how the back flares up if I'm just standing around - jumping in and out of cars, up and down ladders and general movement doesn't seem to worry it, improves it if anything.

The day was quite cool, and underfoot was still damp with the terrain showing signs of high volumes of flowing water having been through and quite a bit of land slip on the edges of the trail. I'd be very wary of going through there after high winds as it's more than likely a few gums are going to come down.

So, headed out, thinking maybe 2 hours would be okay. That was of course until I went straight on instead of left at about 2.25k, and didn't realise the error until I was almost at Mount Nebo Road. I had a couple of goes at trying to find the correct place to turn which generally involved side tracks down to piles of gravel under the two high voltage lines that run through the area. My little transgression ended up adding another eight kilometres to my hike.

Of course, since I'd planned to be out for two hours, I only had a 750ml bottle of sports drink (which in hindsight I mixed a bit rich) and a muesli bar with me, so things started to get a bit grim over the last hour or so and it went from a pleasant hike/jog to a seemingly endless death march, where every turn revealed yet another impossibly steep climb.

It was with more than a little relief I finally staggered to the gate, covering 26.64k in a bit over three and a quarter hours averaging around 8km/h. I was utterly spent, my legs quite painful, which made for an unpleasant drive back through Kenmore to the freeway and home (especially with wretched Moggill Road traffic and the kids coming home from school). I'm guessing I'm not quite as recovered from the two 50km's in two weeks as I thought I might have been last week.

I did console myself with the thought that this was one of those days you remember during the event you were training for, so that you can convince yourself you deserve a good result. It's worked before, it can work again.