Cathedral's Challenge, Christmas and the New Year

It's been a hectic month or two since I last posted so I thought it was about time I did. The last period of racing and training has been a quieter one as the calendar down under dries up to an extent, but this has been a good chance to reset, rest the body up a bit and recharge the batteries to go again now that the New Year has rolled around.

Before this easier period could begin though, there was the small matter of the Cathedral's Challenge to get out of the way first. Having won the Bright 4 Peaks, I was kindly rewarded with another brutal mountain race as a prize. I hadn't heard of the race before, with no one I'd spoken to hearing of it and non of the other scholars running it in the past, so it was an exciting new challenge to head out to the hills and do it. The race consists of a figure of 8 loop up and along the Cathedral Ranges mountain, with a 10k race for the first half and another loop north for those completing the 21k. Happily I was racing the 21k which nicely coincided with my Sunday long run! However, as this race wasn't a major fixture for me in the calendar, I decided not to ease up training for it and go in with the intention of just seeing how it went. I was a little wary though as the winning times for the race in the past were up towards 3 hours! Which over that distance seemed ludicrously long from my point of view.

After a 4am start and a bleary eyed drive north to the race, I arrived to a scene not dissimilar to turning up to a fell race at home. Weary campers and race officials bimbled around the car park setting up the race and a pre-race briefing full of joke warnings about the toughness of the course made me feel right at home and ready to go. The race started at a fairly sedate pace as I took up the lead with Ash who I'd raced each day at Bright and another young Brit who'd emigrated to Aus 2 years prior. Soon however it was just me and Nick Dennis (the other Brit), who began out slow wind up the steep climb to the technical ridge top. And how technical it was! Before the race we'd been warned about how treacherous and tricky it was but that didn't quite prepare us for what was in store! As we climbed on to the ridge proper, we were greeted by a gnarled garden of jagged rocks and twisting ferns, more representative of a lost jungle than a walking track with only the odd dorito shaped symbol indicating that some other humans had been there before. As we wound our way along the ridge, I felt I had the advantage over Nick on the technical sections, feeling pretty light and breezy, I guess from the years of terrain munching in orienteering so I decided to press this advantage along to gain a slight gap before the first descent, minus a couple of slightly wrong turns! The descent is where I decided to really try and make it stick though and I managed to do so well, flinging myself down the sharp twisting track to reach the car park again with a near 2 minute lead.

Beginning the traverse

A quick stop to replenish the water and get some food on board and it was off down the meandering river track to the other end of the ridge for the second climb. This is where it all went wrong...
Despite carefully studying the race map before and keeping a careful eye out for the pink streamers marking the course, I still managed to take a wrong turn! The sign with the big red X saying not to go that was was also marked with a pink streamer. Unfortunately, the sign itself was obscured by some overgrown ferns so I ended up taking in another 3-4min climb and subsequently lost the lead which I didn't realise until the next aid station.

The Cathedral Range ridge

I knew Nick couldn't have been more than 1:30~ ahead so I decided to put a big shift in on the steep ascent to bridge the gap and the press on once the ridge got more technical again. The first part of this plan worked tremendously, closing him down around 2/3rd's of the way up and moving past well with the intention of pressing on. However I'd underestimated how much the heat had risen throughout the day and suddenly once we hit the more open ridge-line I hit a huge wall of fatigue. I was still moving, but my previous fleet-footed approach to the technical rocky sections had become something of a stumble. Mentally I felt like I was still fighting but bodily I was a bit done in. This continued and I carried on digging myself in to a whole from which I wouldn't be coming back. Despite easing massively, taking on food and water, it quickly became clear that my race was pretty much done. This was really frustrating as I felt I was in good shape for this one and the course suited me but all that was left was to consolidate my 2nd place and continue ploughing my way to the finish. As I said, I wasn't bothered about this race but to have capitulated at the last section was a bit of a kick in the teeth after taking the wrong turn earlier on. This was however somewhat made up for by the spectacular views and a few cups of tea at the finish. A fun one to do, but way more brutal than expected.

From here it was time to turn my attention to orienteering, which the Australian Junior Development camp in Ballarat before Christmas suited perfectly. More excitingly, Mary had flown out and arrived just before this which was a welcome change from the sometimes chore-like routine of training. After a quick dash down the Great Ocean Road, we arrived in Ballarat for some quality days of coaching and training with the best juniors down under. It was a great time and so encouraging to see so many juniors who were clearly keen to be there and improve their orienteering abilities.

The actual Christmas and New Years period were a lot quieter for me, with less opportunities for training due to other commitments and also travelling to New Zealand! At the time, I actually found this very frustrating, having been so used to being on my own clock and time for the last 4 months and deciding when I could train and what suited me, it was annoying to snatch pieces of training when possible as other events and appointments came up. Training wasn't bad, but it was a very much ticking over phase whereas I would have liked to have sunk my teeth in to a nice consistent block. However the large amounts of hiking in NZ will have been a worthy replacement for the relentless grind.

Downtime over Christmas

Some of the landscapes

New Zealand is a pretty spectacular place, gorgeous views seem to appear around every corner. Admittedly, whilst I could appreciate the beauty of places like Mt. Cook and Milford Sound I wasn't quite as blown away by the home of hobbits and orcs as perhaps I felt I would be. Yes the landscape is quite stunning, but for me it was no more impressive than the Lakes in the summer or the Alps. The 10 days we spent there were great, made better by my sister coming out to visit too and I was glad we were able to pack in quite as much as we did though. I just wouldn't rush back in a hurry as I feel a lot of other places in the world are just as impressive.

The beginning of January was also a great period. Having both Mary and Harriet here in Melbourne was a welcome change of pace with more touristing and cuisine hunting than I had done so far, including a day at the Australian Open (seeing Murray) which was a particular highlight! In terms of training, I managed to transition fairly well back in to a normal routine and feel more settled in my running and progression than I was over the Christmas period. I decided to run a low key 1500m race last week as a bit of a tester and for some fun as I'd never ran it before. The race itself was good, but I was boxed in early and was unable to position myself to go when the leaders did so my time of 4:10 I don't think reflects where I'm actually at right now, perhaps something around 4:05 would be more realistic but I enjoyed it. Frustratingly though, an annoying Plantar niggle which had been present for maybe a month before decided to flare up and rear it's ugly head the next morning leading to the last week of frustrating but weirdly enjoyable cross training in an attempt to rest it and get back running.

With 2 months left now in Australia, the number of races begins to pick up. It all starts this weekend in Adelaide for some sprint competitions, then a low-key 5000m next week before more orienteering and various running events in the calendar too. I'm really looking forward to this block, I've been a bit bored of plodding and going through the motions, I so much prefer racing so can't wait to be back at it. I've also managed to join a Scandinavian club for the next season (IFK Lidingö) so I am really looking forward to racing the big relays and some Scandi races for them. This has been a very brief post but a fair summary of the last couple of months. Check back next time for more insight in to my running and orienteering life!

Cross training partners make it so much easier!