Winter wanderings.
I wanted to write something about the tragic Grenfell Tower fire, but to be honest, it's just too depressing. So instead, I'll focus on the antidote to depression and frustration, which is, of course, running. Recent days have been relatively dry, so it was time again to go off-road and hit the trails. It was also time to be sensible about the time of day I ran those trails, and so after a decent night's sleep and something of a lie-in plus a leisurely breakfast, I headed out the door at a very civilised 10:00 a.m.
The plan was to scout out the southern end of Lane Cove National Park and the area beyond, down to a junction at Epping Road. If successful, this would then mean I had a known 30 or 31km running route from the ferry terminal at Woolwich, on the northern side of Sydney Harbour, right through to Pennant Hills. This is predominantly bush track, with a small amount of quiet suburban street running, and one that I'm rather keen to attempt in the near future. Being able to run that sort of distance in quiet, secluded eucalypt rainforest whilst never being more than a few dozens of metres from civilisation in the form of a city of five million people is an amazing thing, and I intend to make use of it.
Today's run would be rather less than the 30 or so kilometre outing I have planned, but it was still a good 20+ kilometres - without a functioning GPS it was a little hard to be sure. I suppose I could install an app on my phone to measure it, but I'm actually quite enjoying running without all the bells and whistles, so for the moment I'm letting it be.
The day was cool and with the threat of rain, and whilst there was evidence of recent rain on the ground at various places, I managed to complete my run without being rained on at all. Overall, this was a run that went very well, and another great brain soother and a welcome change from the treadmill and the busy suburban streets of my 'hood. I'm still questioning whether these off-road sessions are the best form of training for the marathon and the Point To Pinnacle, as it seems to me to all be rather too much stop-start as I have to slow to a walk-and-stumble routine on the all-too-frequent steeper and more slippery sections. On the plus side however, I certainly feel stronger in the legs, so the voice of reason suggests it must be doing me some good. The use of a greater range of muscles on the uneven surfaces must be a useful thing, too.
At one stage on this run I stumbled across an orienteering club outing, with lots of earnest-looking, map-holding athletes clambering around the hills looking for orienteering control points. On my return leg I ran through part of their course again, only this time an event photographer took a long sequence of photos of me, even though clearly I wasn't part of the club. On a whim however, later I emailed the club organiser on the off-chance I could get hold of the photos, as I'm pretty sure I don't have a single picture of myself running off-road*. We'll see what transpires.
I returned home three hours after starting out, and later, by using Google Earth calculated that I had covered about 22 kilometres. That is fairly slow I suppose, but it is a pretty rough old track in places, with long sections of it being completely un-runnable, unless you have particular death-wish, or at least a penchant for rolled ankles and bloodied knees. To be honest the pace or lack of it doesn't bother me at all. It's just good to be out there and covering some very tough and very beautiful terrain. As an antidote to the daily news of terrorism, Trump and tower fires, it's hard to beat, and keeping it simple and tech-free seems to be appropriate.
Now to see where I go from here. My training plan is all rather messed up just now, but these trail runs are useful, even if I'm not quite sure in what way.
*Other than one or two taken at the top of Black Cap by Sweder and CC5 ... these however show me either looking exhausted and near death and/or drinking beer, rather than actually running.
High June
