Bright 4 Peaks

For every British scholar who has come out to Victoria to coach, the Bright 4 Peaks appear to have been a real highlight. Having read the Attackpoints and posts from the others guys in the past, I personally couldn't wait to get out to the mountains to test the legs and fitness on what was really uncharted territory. Held each year on Melbourne Cup weekend, the 4 Peaks consists of 4 days of mountain races of various distances with the common theme being a hell of a lot of climb! The total distance for the weekend is roughly 45-50km with just shy of 5000m of vertical ascent, so on paper they are tougher than any of the sort of racing I'd done in the UK on the fells. Nevertheless I was really looking forward to them, training has been going really well since coming out this way, so I was keen to see what I could do.

The racing began early on the Saturday morning so as a group with Joe, Olly who was across from South Australia and Anna we travelled up on Friday so we had plenty of time to relax and prepare for the races to come. We'd managed to tag along with a large group of orienteers and mountain runners in an awesome house on the riverbank so having dropped our stuff we headed out to stretch the legs and make use of the natural ice bath out the back, a good bit of character building ahead of the pain to come!

This picture makes the water look deceptively warm!

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and we wound our way through the mountains in the little Proton to the starting point at the foot of Mt. Buffalo. On the menu today was 10.6km with +1340m ascent. The scene as we rocked up reminded me somewhat of a fell race at home, with just a couple of tables in a clearing, a start flag and a bunch of nutters ready to smash themselves up a hill for an hour or more! What was noticeable though was the sheer amount of kit on display by the runners, looking more like the start-line of the UTMB than a series of shorter mountain races, so we began to wonder what we'd let ourselves in for! 

The race began pretty furiously, with everyone haring off to get across the rope bridge which was just 200m from the line! I managed to get ahead ok but not without being tripped from being and booting my calf! From there, I made sure to settle in and stick to the plan of just tapping away at the climb and not flogging myself on the first steep section. I sat in 3rd behind a Hoka clad runner however he soon began to tire and so when Bryan Keely shot through I decided it was a good a place as any to begin moving up. After 1.5k, the pack had shifted again so that myself, Ash and a guy called Etienne had made a small gap, so when we hit the marginally less steep section, me and Etienne decided to make it stick a bit. I hit the front with 2k to go and really from there, very little else happened. I was nervous about finding myself leading the race so early and on something that I have limited experience of, but I felt good and to be honest, I was enjoying myself, winding steadily up the mountain through the gum trees. The only two notable points were going slightly too far on one turn and adding a little distance then losing the trail as we hit the steep switchbacks on the way up! Decided that instead of losing it completely, the better course of action was to run back down the hill to Etienne who I had a roughly 30s gap on to make sure. Annoyingly I hit a pretty rough patch after this and had to work pretty hard to build up the lead again by the flat section before bouncing along up to the Chalet for the finish with a minute lead. This race was awesome, so different to the one's at home, more about toeing the line than flogging yourself up the hill. The spread of coke, jelly worms and water melon at the top were an absolute dream and we all finished the day in high spirits after a brief photo-shoot at the top.

Poser

The grind to the finish on day 1

Admittedly, I wasn't actually too sure how hard I'd pushed the first day, so the first roll out of bed at 5:55am the next morning was taken somewhat apprehensively. In reality though, I felt pretty good, other than one very sore calf, so after the usual breakfast of porridge with peanut butter and honey and a coffee, I was ready for the off. In theory the days got harder for the first three, with the 2nd day taking us up to the summit of Mt. Feathertop with a distance of 12k and 1652m of ascent.

Pushing to the summit

In contrast to the day before, the race began cautiously, almost as though all of the runners were watching each other to see who would make the first move. I was happy to tuck in on the road section behind Olly and chat away about some tactics, before sitting in 3rd or 4th as we hit the trail-head and the start of the climb-proper. The pace felt comfortable as we wound our way up the first hairpin and having checked my watch I decided it was maybe a little too cruisey, so hit the front after a mile and soon formed a bit of a breakaway with Etienne and Olly. Again I had a slight pang of panic at my potential naivety as I realised that I still had basically an hour of the same climbing to do, but I shoved that to the back of my mind and focused on keeping a rhythm and trotting away up the climb as a gap began to develop between myself and the others behind. Basically there isn't all that much else to tell, my legs actually felt really good on the way up and my lead increased steadily until the steep section before the hut. As the trail got steeper and more technical, my rhythm broke a little and I had to make noticeably more effort to keep chugging away. However, this rough patch soon faded as I entered the clearing before the ridge-line run and was confronted with some of the best views I've seen running. An endless vista of white gummed hills with snow capped peaks poking out of the top is something that will definitely stay with me for a while. The climb to the summit was fairly brutal, reminding me of the steps leading up to Kinder from the Snake Pass, but I ground it out ok to reach the hill top summit with another minute lead. Definitely this is one of the coolest finish lines I've been to, just a random rock in the middle of the summit. Unfortunately there were no gummy worms today, but I suppose the views made up for that!

Some pretty special views up there

Enjoying the views

Again, as Monday morning broke, I expected my body to feel a wreck but with the same routine as the day before I rolled out of bed in good spirits ready for another day of masochism. This was probably the day I was most worried about, in theory it was just a longer version of the last 2 but the make-up of the course actually varied significantly. From the same start as yesterday, we meandered up the river for 6km before the climbing began to take in Mt. Hotham, a total distance of 15km with 1867m ascent. The main issue with this day was the gradient on the climbs, with a long steep climb up to a ridge, then a final assault on a climb which is affectionately called "the wall". We'd decided as a group that we'd try and work together however shamefully I quickly broke from this when I realised that Bryan (who wasn't running the last day) had decided that he fancied a crack at the win for the day. Perhaps is was vanity but I fancied my chances and thought it couldn't hurt my overall GC effort to go with him. I played the sit and kick game today, allowing him to take the lead as we rolled through the forest along the river and then ground our way up the longer steep climb. Bryan put in a few attacks on the first flat section but didn't make any really serious moves until the middle ridge-line where he suddenly opened up the legs and began making serious efforts to gap. Thankfully I'd let him do most of the work on the climb and so my legs still felt good so I managed to check them relatively easily, but it was nice to break up the relentless climbing with something that felt more like a race! I think defaulted to my original race tactic and made my move at the base of the "wall" moving past Bryan and power walking to the top. The climb was undoubtedly a walker, it would have either crucified the legs or been no faster to try and run. Through the clag and mist I had no idea on what my gap was at the razor-back ridge but could sense it was reasonably comfortable. Still I made sure to keep the effort level high through to the finish line to come in with another minute or so lead.
Despite the daunting race profile, this was by far the most fun day, I think the variation between flat/rolling river and ridge sections and the brutally steep climbs meant it felt more racey, with attacks and tactics coming much more in to play. I was sad in a strange way at the end of this as I realised the major mountains were done and we had only 1 more race to go!

Finally on day 4, the effort level began to make itself felt and known. There was undoubtedly more grumbling and shuffling as we breakfasted in the morning and the prospect of running in the appalling weather lashing at the windows wasn't particularly inviting. The race felt much closer to home than the other days with a tough up and down look of Mystic Hill/Heights, a distance of 11k with 739m ascent. Oddly enough, the weather didn't bother me and I was actually looking forward to running in some mud again after the last couple of months of dry, dusty trails! On parking up, we couldn't even really see the hill we were to head up and there were a few nervous faces on the start-line.

Cresting the 2nd climb

In the GC competition, due to some dropouts, I'd managed to pull out a comfortable lead on Olly of around 8:30 minutes, so basically I treated today as an opportunity to see what I could really do on tired legs. Warming up felt a bit rough, with flat legs and just generally more of an effort to get shifting. Still, as the race started, I decided to just go for it and hit the front from the gun. By the bottom of the first climb I had a 10s lead which I extended to around 30s by the fire trail. Here I thought would be a perfect opportunity to push on but this was the first time all week that my legs felt flat as a pancake and so it took a while to get the wheels turning. By the start of the 2nd climb I was pretty clear of the rest of the field and knew if I could get to the top in reasonable time then that lead would hold. This climb was tough. Brutally steep and made slippery and loose by the rain that continued to batter us from the heavens. As it levelled out towards the top my legs felt shot but I took a few steps of walking then forced myself to get a shift on as the first gentle descent rolled away from the summit. What followed next was definitely the worst bit of running of the week. The gently rolling ridge to the final climb of the week just felt savage, slippy climbs but I just felt gassed on any lumps so it was a huge mental battle to keep grinding away. I knew the climbing stopped on 5.7k so as I hit the final climb on 5.4k I knew it was the last push but god it was hard, especially not seeing the top in the clag! From the summit though it was just a case of chucking yourself off the top until the open which was awesome, super sketchy in the wet but almost like a fell race, with a stream and loose rocks causing you to bobble all the way.

Throwing myself down the sketchy descent

The last 4k were a gently winding downhill fire trail and it was just a case of keeping moving. I half had Pete's time in my head from last year and didn't realise that the course was slightly short so put in a proper dig just a little too late. Managed to nip his by 1s but missed out on the overall course record by 1s! How frustrating! Still, after 3 days of racing and in terrible conditions, I was really happy with my effort today.

1st man and 1st woman, big thanks for La Sportiva for the prizes!

This weekend is definitely my highlight of my time in Australia so far. The mountains were just stunning and this type of stage racing and climbing for more than 90 minutes was something very different to anything I've done in the past but it was incredibly fun. Moreover, the company was excellent and I think everyone there had a fantastic time. More importantly for myself, it's really nice to see the training I've been putting in actually paying off, especially this early in the season and I'm excited to try and keep progressing and building on this in the future. Next up is the final few stages of the Sprint in to Spring series which will hopefully allow me to assess where my sprint technique is and what I need to work on in preparation for next year. On Thursday I'll also be running the Victoria 5000 champs on the track so I'm really excited to finally put a proper time down on the track for that. From there my focus will turn more towards orienteering and beginning to hone my skills for the races coming up when I return in spring. Until then, stay tuned for the next instalment!