Megalong Valley

Sunday April 17, 2011 (83 km - 5 weeks to TNF)

How lovely to get away from the suburbs and spend a few nights in the wilds of the Blue Mountains. Hammer and I planned four nights camping at Dunphys Camp in the Megalong Valley with a few days of trail running to get familiar with the TNF 100k course. Glorious weather when we arrived late Thursday and only two  other tents at the campground. We set up a camp and enjoyed the sunset in the peace and quite of the valley with a majestic moon shining over the ridge to the north of the campground.

View north from Dunphys campground

Friday was another fantastic day with a very cold morning followed by glorious sunny weather for the most part before the clouds started to build later in the day.  Late Friday evening we were awakened in our tent by noise of hordes of school kids setting up camp. It was well after 11pm before they settled down and it finally got quite again. Then the drizzle started which turned into solid rain just before dawn. We woke to find our tent surrounded by the new arrivals - the suburbs have followed us. The rain was getting heavier and the Jamison Valley where we planned to run on Saturday was covered in heavy fog. We decided to cut our camping trip short and return home on Saturday. 

Rain and mist at Leura on Saturday

We managed one great training run on Friday starting from Dunphys camp along Megalong Rd, up the Six Foot Track, Nellies Glen and across to Narrowneck, down Taros Ladder across Mt Debert to Medlow Gap then back to Dunphys Camp. A total of 42 km which we did in just over 7hrs – lots of walking and a very slow descent off Narrowneck. Descending Taros Ladder still leaves me a dry mouth, sweaty palms and jelly legs. But there was no going back so I had to face the fear and do it anyway.    

Almost at the end of Narrowneck.

In order to get on top of the Achilles pain in my right foot, I dropped speed and hills this week and ran 3 times for a total of 83km: 12km on Wednesday, 42km on Friday and 29km on Sunday. Fridays long trail run was painful towards the end – every step on the right heel felt like a fire cracker going off. Icing and Voltaren gel  settled most of the pain on Saturday and I was able to get out on Sunday for a  29km around Church Point with only minimal pain in the heel towards the end of the run. The main difference being the surface I ran on, a change in running shoes, fewer hills and less time on my feet.