First Quarry Road Adventure

After I completed Coastal Classic Sean called to congratulate me and we had a chat about whats next on the program. He told me to stay away from Lady Carrington and to get out and hit the hills until 6 Ft. I saw on Cool running that Belinda and Horrie were planning to head to Quarry Road today so I asked if I could tag along for the ride as I have been quite curious about this part of the world, having heard lots about it.

After having absolutely no sleep overnight (partly due to noisy neighbours and knowing I had to get up at 4.20), I drove my car over to Centennial park so that I could be picked up by Horrie and Belinda at 5.00 am. We picked up Jen-Runs in the city and we were then off for Hornsby.

Belinda and I decided to take it easy while Horrie and Jen charged on ahead. As I have only ever been sticking to Lady Carrington some of the hills were a bit daunting for me as I tend to slip quite easily. I will have to learn to be more confident when running down the hills. Belinda and I spent a lot of time chatting and on the first lap out we were walking a lot of the uphills. On the way back from the first lap I think we were so distracted that we were running the uphills as well. Belinda was debating whether to pull the plug at having done one complete lap. I was pretty happy either way as I only had 7km on my program so anything else was a bonus. I suggested that we start running out again until we met Horrie and Jen (which I later regretted big time). Near the end Belinda put her headphones on to concentrate to get up the hills. At this point I had Nutbush city limits in my head as it was the last thing on the radio before we got out. The sun started to come out and it was really warming up when we were heading out for the second lap and I hadnt prepared well with hydration and had run out of water. We got to the loo which is about 4.5km out and although we hadint seen Horrie and Jen, we decided to turn around from there as the thought of tackling the next very large winding hill didnt really appeal. I found that it wasnt so much that I was hurting, I was just running out of energy and really needed to drink.

I was extremely glad to see the car at the end. All up Belinda and I done around 21km for just over 3 hours. Pretty good for me considering the run last weekend, and it took me forever to recover from Canberra Marathon. It was great sitting around in the shade at the end rehydrating and Jen brought some snacks with her that were greatly welcomed.

By the time I got home Dean was just waking up from doing night shift the night before and we headed out to the movies to watch Blood Diamond. I wont give away too many details but it was great, very full on and very confronting.

I'm looking forward to heading out to Quarry Road a few more times before Six Foot and seeing the track as well. The run seemed to work well for my lack of sleep lately as I slept like a baby.