A Tough Morning Out On The Trails
Smiths Gully, the first run in the Rapid Ascent Trail Run Series
At the end of May, I completed a 23k road run in which I smashed the time I was expecting. I was high on motivation, ready to back this up with the Rapid Ascent Trail Run Series.
The trail runs are June, July, and August in various locations around Victoria, but within an hour of Melbourne. In my mind, I had a month between runs.
I should have checked the calendar.
After a week of rest following the May run and some average weather having me skip a couple more days, suddenly the June trail run was here.
I hadn’t been on a trail. The race had snuck up on me.
I was confident of the distance, but there was a venue change. The run now began with a steep hill climb and an overall elevation gain of 800m. This, with my lack of prep on trails, I expected to be a slow run.
We set off straight up the hill climb — it was steep with the majority of runners choosing to walk it and one fellow telling runners to save themselves, this was just the start.
