Jamison Valley

Sunday April 24, 2011 (135 km - 4 weeks to TNF)

Easter is a time of rebirth and renewal which in the northern hemisphere heralds the beginning of spring. For us it heralds the start of autumn, lots of rain and the  arrival of cool weather. Easter week was the last big week of training before the start of the taper for The North Face 100k in 3 weeks. I am a little bit more confident that I will be at the start line after finishing my biggest mileage week and coupled with some improvement in the achilles towards the end of the week.

Mt Solitary - we were heading down into the misted in valley.

Last Tuesday Hammer and I headed back to the Mountains to complete the back end of the TNF course. Starting at the Fairmont Resort in Leura we followed the course to Leura Falls and from there headed south into the Jamison Valley via the old Katoomba treatment plant site, over Leura and Jamison Creeks then up Kedumba Road and then back to the finish at Fairmont. Brutal, long climb from Jamison Creek to the old Queen Victoria Hospital site which in the TNF race will be at 80kms. Hammer swore he would never, ever consider an event like the TNF,  he was not having a good day. I felt bad for dragging him along but we were rewarded with glorious weather, sunny with great views of Mt Solitary from many vantage points. Once we got to the hospital site the last 10km of the course just goes on and on. I had expected the last 20k to be hard regardless but this course is dastardly in the second half. I can see that in the event it will be an absolute challenge of will, as it will be cold and dark.  A total of around 38kms which took us 7hrs 40 min to complete. Achilles pain was unbearable for the last 5hours of the run - but we walked the hills anyway so not sure it slowed us down all that much.  Icing and Voltaren gel seem to settle the worst of the pain. 

The following day, Wednesday I ran 11kms on the St Ives course, to see if taping the foot and inserting orthotics made any difference.  A pain free 65 min jog. Yippeee.
Thursday was another long run, approx 45 kms on the Trailwalker course from Brooklyn to Bobbin Head. Ran with Sharon, who is also doing TNF and Andre joined us for the first leg to Cowan. Another glorious warm day. An absolute highlight of this run was reaching Jerusalem Bay in the early morning mist and stillness. 

Morning stillness at Jerusalem Bay

Two cruisers lay at anchor  in the protected waters - it looked so peaceful. But we did not have  much time to linger lots of ground still to cover.  We finished the run in 7hrs40min and largely pain free thanks to the taping and orthotics. A great confidence boost after Tuesdays slow and very painful run in the mountains.  And just in time for the Easter weekend, the rain arrived. I finished the week with a 20km local Church Point run  taking in lots of hills. And more hills on the 20km Bobbin Head Revisited STaR on Sunday. Legs felt tired and lethargic both days. Now it is time for renewal and recovery during the 3 week taper.