Happy Australia Day Weekend!!!!

Well, so far I've had such a great Aussie Day weekend, I really dont want it to end. I was extremely undecided about heading up to the Blue Mountains on Friday, but after thinking "you only live once" I thought is it really worth missing out on an adventure just for a little lost sleep. I got up at 3.45 am on Friday morning and although I had everything ready the night before, still seemed to underestimate how slow I am at that time of the morning and was rushing out the door at 4.10. Equiped with my "Whereis" directions, I was surprised at how easy it was getting to the Blue Mountains (I get lost very easily). It was raining a little and looked as though it had been raining heavily through the night so I had no idea what the weather would be like up there. "Whereis" had me speeding the entire way to get there in the time limits it had provided and I was crapping myself at the thought of it being double demerits. My effort was in vain when I found out I missed the train the guys were catching at Woodford by around 3 minutes. At this time it was still really dark and foggy and I had no idea where the track was so I couldnt head out on my own so I decided to try and race the train up the track. It wasnt looking good when I got stuck behind a truck but was lucky to see the guys running across the road at Wentworth Falls and pumped the horn. A rush of getting ready and we were off.

The guys were definately a lot faster than me, but luckily Terry stayed back a little so that I could still see him in the fog and he could still see them and I didnt get lost. The pace to keep up was quite a bit quick for me (around 5.30 km's on the road) and I was praying that we would hit the trail so that I could start going at my own pace and didnt have to worry about getting lost. We managed to take the wrong turn on the trail for a while, adding around an extra km but soon after Sailaway gave me a map and we were all on our way. I was thankful for the slow down in pace and was really enjoying how peaceful it was in the fog.

The views were spectacular and it made me feel so small being out there amongst the massive mountains. The guys were nice and left a map out for me to let me know where to turn off on the trail. At the next intersection I went to turn right as you were meant to and noticed 3 of the guys running back towards me as they had gone the wrong way. It was at this point that Terry had decided to slow down the pace a little and joined me for the rest of the run. I enjoy running on my own but it was also a lot of fun having some company and we chatted a lot about all things ultra, it made the time go past really quickly. For a lot of the way I was thinking that it probably wasnt training for 6 foot as the hills werent that big, however, once we reached the 20km mark we were met by a very steep descent to the river that saw me matching my right black toe with a left black toe!! From around 24km onwards it was just constant steep hills upwards and we kept checking to see if we were going the right way by looking at the footprints of the other guys. When we hit the road again it wasnt long before we reached the train station and the guys were relaxing in chairs refueling and gave us a nice clap in.

I am not completely sure myself as I didnt have sattlelite for a while but the guys said we done just over 33km and I think I completed it in just over 4 hrs which I am very happy with. Terry kindly gave me a lift back to my car and I was off towards home by 11 am. I am happy with how I went, but realised I didnt fuel properly when I didnt have any dinner the night before as I had a couple of drinks at work and didnt manage breakfast either so was only going on a few gels (besides the tyre around my waist!!!!).

I arrived home to find some of our guests arrived. I helped Dean cook the barbie and it was nice sitting on our balcony that was quite cool in contrast to the heat out west. We headed over to Bondi Beach later on and met up with a lot of other people and didnt leave until 8pm. After having a shower we were off again to the Beach Road Hotel. By midnight I was absolutely shattered and was begging Dean for us to go home. Needless to say, I slept very well Friday night after being awake for almost 24 hours.

On Saturday Dean and I went to Mum and Dad's to pick up Kaos and we took her camping at hte bottom of Macquarie Pass. It was a lot of fun but our new tent (which is bigger than our unit) is too much of a pain in the ass to put up just for one night. We were lucky this morning when we woke up and the rangers come and they were nice and told us that we werent meant to be camping there, as you're only allowed to be camping at least 1 km in.

All in all it was a great way to spend a long Aussie Day weekend, from running in the Mountains, to having a nice bbq on the cliffs, to having a swim at bondi, having a few at the pub, and then on to camping illegally with my puppy. Finishing it off with a roast cooked by my Mum. What more could I ask for ????