Alpine Race Report Part 1: The Beginning

It started with a text message. My friend Tamyka suggested I enter the 100km at the Alpine Challenge. At the time I laughed (or LOL’d) this off as a rather ridiculous idea. I had hiked about 50km of the course with Tamyka back in 2009 and could still remember the agony of hiking up T-Spur to summit Mount Bogong, and the bewilderment I had at the idea that she was planning to run the course. Thinking of that, I was certain there was no way I could run that course, and then there was the navigation to worry about too.

　
I am always a little taken in by Tamyka’s ideas though. In some way, I think she is better at gauging my abilities than I am and the more we trained together, the more the idea started to resonate with me. After a while, I knew I had to do it. I had no idea if I could finish, or even find my way, but I just had to try. I consider this to be the toughest 100km trail run in Australia and that is something I couldn’t miss out on having a go at.

My proper training started around December, when I finally committed to signing up. Having spent the end of 2010 and the first half of 2011 sidelined with injuries, I put a lot of thought into how to train for this event. It is quite apparent that my body can’t handle high mileage training and I only had to look at my record of overuse injuries to see that. So my Alpine training plan involved a lot of cross training. I also tried to avoid consecutive running days for the first couple of months. A normal week looked like this: run 20-70km, swim 2-3km, ride 70-100km and throw in some weights training.

I am proud to say that I didn’t get injured. In fact, I haven’t had an injury since I came out of that horrid moon boot back in April last year. I experienced minor niggles about 3 times and on each occasion identified the cause, rested and was niggle free within a couple of days. This is quite possibly my biggest running achievement to date.

By the end of February I was pretty exhausted from training. Although my mileage was low, I still found myself extremely busy. I all but gave up my free time and social life for training. I have no idea how people manage 100km plus weeks. Finally March arrived which meant tapering! I was very happy to give my exhausted self a rest.

Unfortunately, tapering is when the panic starts. With a bit of free time, I found I actually had time to think of the challenge ahead. Although the physical challenge was daunting – 100km with over 4000m of ascent – that isn’t what really worried me. I was fitter and stronger than ever and I had something far scarier to worry about – navigation!

This is not a marked course. There was no flagging tape in trees, no signs at junctions and sometimes, the trails become quite indistinct. I can read a map and use a compass. I found my way around the Canadian Rockies just fine, and the one time that I did get lost, I managed to use the contour lines and some landmarks on the map to figure out where I was and scramble back to safety. Feeling confident in those skills would be rational however, and all I could think about was when I had hiked the area 2 years earlier with no map reading or navigation experience to speak of. Back then I had to rely entirely on Tamyka. Even worse, I remembered coming down Quartz Ridge and losing the path several times because it was indistinct and overgrown.

In the spare time I had between packing and coming up with a race plan, I studied the map. This only made me panic more. On top of this, there was talk of a course change due to all the rain, so I was absolutely convinced I was going to get lost. Most likely this would happen in the dark. I am afraid of the dark. By race week I was feeling ill with worry. I somehow managed to stuff a suitcase full of all the gear I would need, plus some I didn’t, get on a plane and eventually end up in Bogong village.