A very wet playground...Wakefield to Congewai with the Trotters!

Have to be at West Gosford by 6am to get the Trotters bus. Ok...no big deal....alarm goes off just after 4am and I spring out of bed....ok I set the alarm to go off 20min later then I slowly get my creaking muscles out of bed. After a shower I kinda feel pretty good for 4:30am on a Sunday morning.

On my way to West Gosford and a stop at Maccas for coffee I'm ready and standing in some light rain with a few others.

About 7 of us got off to do the 40km section and the rest were off to do the 30km section. I have no idea what time we set off running but off we go. I'm running with Ian for 20 or 30min and we are discussing how great the run will be if the weather stays how it is (light drizzle) then somewhere I lost him behind me in the fog. The first 10km has quite a lot of hills and with the rain lots and lots and lots of slippery clay where I think I spent more time sliding than running.

The next section was where the 30k runners started and I got there in 54min and up the hill to the communication tower I head. I ran most of this except for the almost vertical bits then I'm on the stairs where I see some walkers heading towards me and one wanted to chat to me about TNF race 2 weeks ago. So we are chatting away for a bit over 5min and I tell him I might get going again. He tells me the 30k runners were about 20min ahead. Cool I might catch them. Once up the top I find it easy going to Heatons Gap. No use looking at the lookout because of the fog so I head down to the jungle section. I love this part and after a while I catch up to Les, Deirde, Lynne and Wayne then just ahead a new guy (forgot his name) the up to the Hugging pole. Thats a nasty steep climb which I manage to walk run it. I hug the pole and off I go again. Into the real jungle I loose track of the course. I can see the pink dots on the trees then they just vanish so I decide after 10min scratching my head I'll just run back until I see another runner. Then I see Ian and together we find our way through. Well it was Ian that found the way. We then run together until we get to checkpoint 1 where Robyn is waiting with all sorts of goodies. She tells us she has only seen Jo, Detta and Denise and they missed the jungle section and were about 15min ahead, so off we go again.

Ian dropped off pretty much straight away and it wasn't long before I catch up to them then I'm on my own for the rest of the run. I get to the bus in 4hrs40min and Graham Steele is there. He says he finished in 3hrs10min and I'm thinking thats a pretty time then I ask if he went through the jungle section but he missed it too.
17min later Ian and Denise came in and over the next few hours the rest made it.

Long day but an awesome day

How did my hip go? hmmm well I couldn't take off on any down hills and after about 3hrs my hamstring was getting quite achy so I just ran within myself

Tomorrow I'm off for physio and I'll see what Stan reckons