- Written by K2 Base Camp Ambassador Matt Gore -
It was a dark and cold morning at the Gap. You could pick the local Brissie runners as the ones huddling desperately around the gas heaters, and the crazy Victorian runners as the ones walking around brazenly in bare t-shirts. The rest of us were somewhere in between.
As my watch ticked over to 5:30 AM, and the final 10-second countdown began to head us off on our 110km journey, I was looking forward to the day ahead. My training had gone well, I was feeling fit and strong, and apart from a head cold I’d picked up a few days earlier (which would reveal itself on the following Monday to be COVID), the taper had gone perfectly.
As the countdown reached zero, we set off into the darkness. The group quickly fragmented over the rocky technical first kilometre, and we settled into a front pack of five. The first 30 minutes were quite collaborative, slowly climbing up in comfortable silence punctuated by the occasional discussions about which direction to take.
After about 5km our group fragmented further, and one of the runners pulled away. He was running very fast, and I decided he was going to crash hard or set a course record. Either way, I didn’t want to try and stick with him. I settled into a groove with Mike Carroll and had a chat with him – discovering that he had won the race the year before and getting a few tips from him for the long day ahead. He was such a nice guy. After about an hour, I settled down into a pace and power output (255-265W) more consistent with my plans for a 12-hour race and Mike pulled away ahead. He was running unbelievably strongly, hunting that front runner, and I mentally wished him luck – wondering if he would see him again that day. … Spoiler, I wouldn’t.
I came into CP1 at 14.6km alone and only stopped briefly. I was temporarily upset to find out that no supply of gels available at the aid stations, as I was relying on those for 1 of my 3 gels every hour. Self-sufficient nutrition isn’t cheap! ‘Oh well’, I had thought, ‘adapt and overcome and all that shit’ – hopefully, I would have enough to get me through. Served me right for not doing my homework on the event properly.
The next 30km were a blur. I held well to my power targets and overtook most of the miler field. I don’t know many Brisbane runners – but it was nice to see a few familiar faces from BTU last year and I kept passing Hayley Teale (a La Sportiva trail running athlete I ran with in my first UTA100) who provided an awesome cheer squad. Thanks, Hayley.
By the time I reached CP2 at 45km it was getting pretty warm and I was starting to lose my strength. I figured I’d pushed a little too hard too early, and maybe the sickness was coming into play. To be fair, I hadn’t even known whether I would be able to run the morning before, so 45km and not DNS/F’d was a good start. I must have looked terrible though because the K2 Base Camp team at the checkpoint barely recognised me as I emptied my rubbish and gorged on watermelon. A quick water bottle fill up and I was off again.
For about 20 mins I ran with a couple of blokes from the miler that were setting a cracking pace, and then we split as our courses diverged. Just before that point, I’d seen the BTU110 guys who were previously running in 4th and 5th running back past me in the opposite direction. I knew I hadn’t made a mistake on the course so they must have missed something. A sigh of relief as the podium finish for me was suddenly that much safer.
At about 50km I passed the man in blue who’d torn away in 1st place all those hours ago. He was slowly walking up the hill and looked absolutely destroyed. I told him ‘good luck – there’s many hours left in the day’ as I ran past – we’ve all been there, and through experience we learn the hard way not to make those mistakes.
For the next 30km I ran without seeing a soul, always imagining blue shirt was only one corner behind me to keep myself pushing. The course was a blur, but I particularly enjoyed the super steep downhill with the rope (I didn’t use it – I loved running down that!) and the hill back up the other side. The gradients were brutal, and reminded me so fondly of my time running the Australian Alps Walking Track towards Baw Baw National Park where we had about 40km of that terrain non-stop. Compared to that, this was a piece of cake.
I came into CP5 (about 80km) around 9h 30m. By this stage I was still running okay but a good hour off what I would have hoped. I learned that Mike was an hour ahead, but that 3rd place was over an hour behind me already. With that safety buffer, and knowing there was no way I was catching Mike, I took a longer break and had a good chat with my friend Giles who was there at the checkpoint supporting me. I tried to get some watermelon down with mixed success – my body was starting to reject the gels and I was getting low on energy. I think this was partly due to the heat, and partly the COVID.
After about 10 mins, I set out to polish off the final 35kms. I have a big miler at GSER coming up in November and wanted to remind my body what it was like to run past 100km. This distance was the perfect training race for that. Sure enough, at about 100km my body hit a new low – somehow my legs knew that this was the point at which we normally stop running and I get handed a beer!
I pushed on and was lucky enough at this stage to be racing the mid-pack of the BTU30 racers. They, with 15km in the legs, were a good match and pushed me harder than I had been running in a fair few hours!
Unfortunately, as the night set, it all began to unravel. I hadn’t eaten for about 3 hours, and with the dark came the cold. I quickly put on my gloves and thermal top but I knew it was too late as I felt my lungs starting to close up in response. Absolutely exhausted, and having to respond to something I’ve never really had to deal with before, I more or less hiked the final few kilometres of the trail – just wishing for it to be over.
Finally, at about 105km, we reached the road proper. I had done a shoe swap at the final station, and it paid dividends here. I forced down a gel and picked up my shuffle back to a 5min/km jog (it felt like a sprint – trust me). I then ran the final 10 kilometres all the way back to Kangaroo Point, feeling on that flat terrain the best I had for a long time. Clearly, there wasn’t that much flat on the course.
About 2km from the finish, just after crossing the bridge, I began running side by side with a young teenager who was out on an evening 10km jog. He asked if we were doing an ultra, and when I told him I was 115km in (yes Shona – 115km!) he couldn’t believe it. “Dude, you’re crazy. And you’re running 4’30’s right now!!” I grinned. Hopefully, he signs up next year.
I crossed the finish line in 13.5 hours. More than 2 hours behind Mike (who ran a crazy CR) and about the same amount ahead of 3rd. It was an odd race, one in which I was almost there but just never quite got going. I was disappointed but still happy, and I’ve decided not to be too harsh on myself.
If I had known I had COVID I never would have raced, but I am proud of the way I was able to push when it was smart to push, and slow down and look after myself when it was smart to do that. You can only worry about the things you can control, and my only regret was that I wasn’t in better shape to have pushed Mike harder – I didn’t say it to him after, but I felt like I had let him down by being so far behind.
After a choccie milk and a further heartbreaking loss at the Wallabies a few hours later, my focus turned to recovering the legs, getting over this stupid virus, and preparing for what will likely be the toughest race of my life so far – the GSER 100 miler. I can’t wait.