A 50 kilometre weekend. Bellarine Rail Trail.

Saturday the 19th of August

Knowing I would regret it if I didn't, I set out during a few spare hours for a 16km Hal Higdon training run.

I had thought a lot about R2B's comments from a previous post about how fast one of my 17km runs went. I double checked the figures and found that they were all correct so surprisingly I did run 17km in 1:26:00. On Saturday I ended up pushing myself hard and ran 16.1km's in 1:16:21. Again an average pace of 4:44!

All my splits were under 5 minutes except for a steep hill section. I will be working on that one soon :-)

Sunday the 20th of August
Fatass Bellarine Rail Trail Run

After spending the night at my in-laws Ocean Grove place Saturday night (not as bad as it sounds, they are very good in-laws). I woke at 6:30am, had some toast, and drove the half hour trip to the Geelong Showgrounds.

At 7:25 am there was already a lot of people there. I signed the necessary indemnity forms and hopped around keeping warm and chatting to familiar faces.

Once again I met Coolrunners, Tiger Boy, Eat Em', Jaykay, Chilliman, Diane[GH], and Superjacent (aka Steve).

At 7:50am the Race Director Brett (Coolrunnings BDC) gave us a chat on runners safety and good behavior and Lee Troop gave a short speech thanking Brett and his team of volunteers. Lee also asked the Ultra runners doing the 68km to seriously think hard about what they were doing.

With a very informal ready, set, go we all set off and I kept with the leaders group till about the 7.7km mark where I stopped for a short toilet break.

I rejoined the race with two strangers that seemed to be doing a happy pace. One of them was talking about his experience at the Paris Marathon and it was interesting listening.

The Paris Marathon guy upped his ante and joined a forward group and I cotinued to run with the other bloke who I found out was a Coolrunning lurker named Paul.

Paul and I stayed together for quite awhile at a 5:15 to 5:30 pace. We walked through the 16km aid station for water and some lollies then picked up our speed to 5 minutes or less for the next 10 kilometres.

During that time it was a little satisfying to pass the Paris Marathon guy who was reduced to a run alot/walk a little pace.

Paul and I stayed together till 26km's when he had to stop to deal with a stitch.

At the 27.8 km mark The Garminator spat the dummy and lost all satellite reception. I was feeling much the same and was just about stuffed on a long stretch of bitumen road when Tiger Boy and Eat Em' powered up from the rear and swept me along for the last 5 kilometres.

Tiger Boy was doing a fantastic job of Pacer, calling out words of encouragement and I could feel their energy. I managed to keep pace with them till over the finish line and I am so grateful for their assistance.

The Garminator lost signal for 30 minutes and gained it back toward the very end. I am not very happy with its data from this run and will not be posting his results. According to Steve's Mr Garmin the distance was 33.63 kilometres and I completed it in 2:52.

The auther and Steve. Steve is surprised to hear that he is not the only one with a secret camera.

My ever faithful family was at the finish line to meet me and Sal drove me to the local caravan park to shower and get my Skins on before I couldn't walk.

We had a fantastic lunch at the Royal Hotel in Queenscliff where I wolfed down a very yummy and well deserved Rib-Eye steak.

24 hours later and I can't praise the healing powers of Skins enough. My legs feel brand new and feel ready for another 34km run.