Kedumba Take Three

The 6 Ft Track showed me that there was only one thing I needed - apart from a replacement knee - hills - big ones and the steeper the better.

So with a measure of trepidation I set out to cross the Jamison again - Stage 5 & 6 of the North Face was becoming my favourite training day out.

Starting at the Fairmont Leura - I ran the Cliff Top track to Katoomba - down Leura Cascades - ducked behind the Federal Pass sign onto the "secret garden" track that leads all who like to suffer down and across the Jamison - to be confronted with a 7km climb up Kedumba Walls to Kings Tableland.

From there it's just a couple of hours home.

Rain and the mist kept me company all day. This time round I managed to run the 8 km of "down", my quads are slowly getting used to horror of long downs.

You know downs are tough when you look forward, in fact - prefer to climb, as an alternative to the pain of the down.

Five and half hours later - 30km, 1600m up and 1600m down I wobbled into the Fairmont car park.

A bit toasted.

Ready to do it again next weekend.

Oh the joy of the North Face!

6 Foot Track 2011

After the 2010 North Face the surgeon said your days of Ultras are over - things weren't looking too good for my knees. His words were - the best you can hope for is a flat land marathon on tar!

Yikes - could there be anything worse?

What I heard was blah blah "best hope" blah blah "marathon" which I interpreted as the 6 Foot Track (45km, off road, all dirt and steep) would be just fine for me.

Needless to say - it was a bit of a challenge.

So with lot's of gym work and very little long distance off road work in my legs - 6Ft Track day 2011 rolled around. Blackheath to Jenolan Caves via the direct route - straight across Megalong Valley - 45km, 1600m up

and 1600m down.

The goal this year was simple. Beat the BROOM. Finish.

Given that I was going to be a back marker and probably hold people up going down Nellie's Glen - I decided the best place to start was at the back of 900 runners.

After two big climbs out of the Cox's river - the Broom hadn't shown up. At the 32km mark torrential rain for an hour turned everything into a river - which meant cold running at over 1000m in altitude.

By 37km my knee was not working properly - this left walking as the only option and that was preferred over the sag wagon - I just had to stay in front of the Broom.

The last 2 km's are notorious and tortuous. Steep and straight down to the top of the Grand Arch at Jenolan.

Now walking sideways and with a km to go - I looked up and the Broom was 100m behind me. A fast sidestep type hobble ensued.

At 6 hrs 55 min and 38 sec - I beat the Broom by three minutes.

A few minutes later - dripping pools of water and waiting in line for a coke. The bloke next to me said "Do you know who won?"

My reply.....

"No idea - but I do know who came last - me!"

He had trouble figuring out why I had such a big grin on my face.