Two Bays Trail Run 56km 2016

When I entered the Two Bays Trail Run I had big plans for training. Those plans didn't go as hoped. I've had more competition for my time and my running over the last few months has been well below the level I should be doing when preparing for a 56km race. Without a long run beyond 27km, little consistency and maybe 50km worth of running in any given week I still turned up.

The weather was amazing, a light wind, mild morning, clear skies and gradually warmed up to quite hot as the day moved on. Despite not training well I couldn't miss this race. This is definitely one of my top favourite races. The organisation is spot on, the volunteers go above and beyond and the overall feel of the race is almost impossible to surpass. Knowing I wasn't capable of a good time, I decided I would take it easy and see how far that would take me in.


Making a point to start away from the front runner I held back and cruised through the mostly single track in the opening 5km. I felt awesome and running was ridiculously easy. In fact, these easy feeling continued through out the first half. I checked off my splits and the times were similar to previous years. Attempting to slow down a bit just made running harder, so things seemed better if I just held my pace. Up and over Arthur's Seat and my technique felt smooth and light. Making the half way turn in Dromana I was well ahead of expectations.

Back up the major climb and I was still feeling good. Until about the 34km mark when my body decided to teach me a lesson in training properly. For the remainder of the race my legs went through a kaleidoscope of cramps. Despite plenty of people offering me extra salt, this was not an electrolyte issue. It was clearly exceeding what my legs had been trained to do. There was definitely more walking than running for the remainder. I became a back-of-packer and seriously had to ask what the cut off time was. It hurt.

Yet, I still absolutely loved it in that strange way people like me enjoy pushing beyond our boundaries.

Some awesome person made good use of a drone and camera to capture some of the race. Check it out and I'm sure you can see part of what makes this race so awesome.


2016 Two Bays Trail Run from BytheBay on Vimeo.

Comments

  1. Ewen20 January 2016 at 19:14

    Fantastic Jason. The old "34k body teaching the brain a lesson trick". I like the have a crack and see how you go attitude. And that drone footage - brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown21 January 2016 at 08:26

    Thanks Ewen, I did hope expect it to catch up with me on the day, but was overly optimistic in hoping it would be further into the race.

    ReplyDelete

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