The Horrie and Belinda Show

12/8/06

Blue Dog and I arrived nice and early for our 12 Foot debuts. Not long after, a few others began to arrive, including Ross who provides breakfast each year.

We saw Team Mellum's approach to this day when Tim Turner emerged from his car wearing a dressing gown looking like Rocky Balboa.

We were all revved up waiting to go but were held up as Mr G and Mel were running late. We thought this was funny as they lived the closest.

We finally got underway at 7.20. I knew I was in for an eventful day when I missed a turn going down Nellies Glen and ended up on my backside. I quickly regrouped and followed Jan and Kevin down the stairs. Mellum and Blue Dog were now out of sight so once out onto the single trail, I opened up the stride, going past Laurence Meade in the process. Got to Megalong Valley in around 50 minutes, where Sarge and Mel were waiting with our backpacks. I finally caught a glipse of Blue Dog going up Pinnacle Hill. Tim and Whippet had stopped to show us this tree where this bloke has laid his ashes. What a great view he has. Then in no time at all, Tim and Whippet bolted down the hill to the single trail to announce their intentions. At this point, I tried to hold Blue Dog on the leash and reminding him of our plans to run 14 hours. He held back for a while before temptation got the better of him and he left me again to run on my own. Got to Cox's River in 1:45 before my next mishap. This time I slipped as rock hopping across the river and went face first into one of the rocks. After a quick check that there was no major damage apart from my cheekbone starting to swell, I pushed up on the climb to Mini Mini. I felt a lot better on the climb to Mini Mini than I did at 6 Foot this year. I reached there feeling great. On the descent down to Alum Creek, I ran into Chonky who had ridden his bike from Deviation down from Pluvi, which goes to show there is somebody crazier than us 12 Footers. He rode alongside me asking questions about different runners. Unfortunately, I couldn't help him much as you are out there on your own. I wasn't surprised when he had to get off his bike and walk it up the steeper sections of the climb to Pluvi. I reached Pluvi in 3:31, which gave me a 1:46 split from Cox's River. I calculated that I was on target to reach Caves House in 6 hours, which was a half an hour ahead of schedule. So I decided to back it off across the Black Range and add some walk breaks. I was very happy to see Mel and Chonky at the Deviation with my drop bag as I could now have something more substantial to eat. So after restocking and refilling my backpack and bladder, I marched on down through the deviation munching on a sandwich. I wasn't surprised to see Spud charging back up towards the Caves Rd crossing approximately an hour ahead of me but seeing Tim Turner approximately 8 minutes behind him was a shock. Whippet was another 5-10 minutes behind him with Blue Dog hot on his hammer. Laurence Meade went past me just before the single fire trail but I then went past him on that treacherous downhill. But as the quads were copping a pounding and I started to worry that I might come to an inglorious end, I backed off and he went past me again. I was happy to arrive at Caves House in 6:07, a minute behind Laurence and a minute ahead of Ken Smith who had started an hour earlier, as he did at PMC. A quick toilet break and clearing a few small rocks out of the shoes, I turned around to do the toughest thing I have ever done, walking back up the pathway that takes you to that treacherous fire trail to begin the journey back to Katoomba. I was relieved that the cramps that plagued me at 6 Foot this year did not threaten yesterday but the quads and feet were still copping a pounding, undoubtedly not helped by carrying a couple of extra kilos on your back. I was happy to get back to Deviation where I filled up with the last of my supplies. Chonky agreed to take what I didn't need back to Katoomba and he would leave them under Blue Dog's car. Heading back across the Black Range was a lot easier than the first time, but this was helped by the fact that I was now adding more walk breaks into the program. I was happy to get back to Pluvi in a tick over 3 hours. Considering this included heading back up the fire trail, I was very happy that I was less than a half hour slower than the trip from Pluvi to Caves House. I felt that I shouldn't lose much time heading down from Pluvi, even though I really had to back off on the downhills due to the quads now screaming. Darkness came over as I was on one of the last descents down to Cox's River. I wasn't looking forward to this as I had never run trails at night but I was telling myself that this is the reason I am doing this to help prepare me for Glasshouse. Therefore, I was happy to reach Cox's River in a tick over 11 hours. I knew the last 15.5km back to Explorer's Tree was not going to be easy but reasoned that I should do it in 3-3.5 hours giving me a finish in 14-14.5 hours. Well, that was before I managed what Kevin had managed to do and think you crossed the river but actually end up on the same side you started. Not once mind you but 3 times. Some campers could see that I was in trouble and tried to help me and suggested that I cross the river using Bowtell's Swing Bridge. This proved as big a disaster because I lost the trail to that as well. At this stage, I felt quite demoralised but reasoned that if I headed back to Cox's River, I would wait for the next runner to come through. Just as I arrived, Ken Smith was just coming in. So I decided to finish with him as I did at PMC not that long ago. We started off the climb along the single trail at good clip but within an hour Ken started having his usual bad patch around this time and his stomach had shut down and he gets this bad urge just wanting to vomit. So after a couple of sit down breaks and a few false alarms, he finally managed to be sick and this perked him up for a while and we began to pick up the pace again. Then as we got closer to Megalong Valley, he started to get the urge to go to sleep. I kept motivating him by telling him there was not much longer to go but now progress was very slow. Then about 4km from the finish, he just slumped to the ground saying he had to go to sleep. I didn't want to leave him but he assured me he would be alright and as I hadn't seen Jan Hermann or Louis Commans come past, I knew he wasn't out there on his own. So I headed up towards Nellies Glen and again got lost going up the stairs. I was so angry with myself, realising I was so close to the finish yet so far. Once again I was relieved when Ken came through again after having a little cat nap. I told Ken I was now staying with him until the finish. Going up the stairs was very hard going as Ken was suffering exhaustion and had to sit down every 20 steps or so. This dragged on for quite a while before we finally got to the fence that signals the end of the steps. So after checking with Ken that he would be alright from here, I headed back up to Explorer's Tree, finally reaching it just before midnight. This gave me a whopping 5:35 split from Cox's River and blew the finishing time out to 16:37. The only person happier than me to finally finish was Blue Dog, who had been sitting patiently in his car for a couple of hours waiting for me.

The positives to come out of this run was that I was able to complete a gruelling 90km run feeling mentally and physically strong. It has also given me the confidence that I will finish the 100 miles at Glasshouse, unless something goes drastically wrong on the day. I was going to mention the negatives but I don't want to entertain negative thoughts as they make you weak.

13/8/06

So after a couple of hours sleep, I was out to do it all again. This time taking Tim to his first City 2 Surf while Belinda continued on the comeback trail. I was relieved that I could walk around without too much discomfort. So after a nice breakfast, we were headed into town for a fun day.

We went with Belinda to pick up her number and left her to meet CR Roses at Starbucks. Tim and I headed over to collect our numbers. So after a quick stop at the toilet and a discard of some old pants, we were ready to go. However, we had to wait for what seemed an eternity to Tim before we could actually start moving. It was around 10 o'clock before we crossed the start line. Tim was enjoying the day immensely and got great delight of seeing all the different costumes people were running/walking in. We reached the 5km mark in around an hour and he wasn't looking too flash at this point as he was sweating quite heavily and was feeling the effects of this cold he has had for the last week. I was able to keep him perked up by talking about how close we were to Heartbreak Hill. But then as we were going up it, the novelty had worn off and he was doing it quite tough at this point. Then I saw Virtual walking with his family just up ahead so I encouraged Tim to catch up to him so we could have a quick chat. Not long after reaching Virtual and having that quick chat, Tim announced he wanted to run again so we bade farewell to Virtual and his family and we pushed on. Whenever Tim wanted to know how he was going, I would just remind him that he is closer to the finish than the start. Then when we reached 10km, we started counting the kms down. And I was happy to tell Tim it was mostly downhill from here. The kms slowly ticked over but when he caught glimpse of the beach, he told me he could smell the finish. So I made a deal with him that we would walk all the way up Campbell Pde and then he would run it into the finish. He stuck to his guns and ran it all the way down Queen Elizabeth Drive. Belinda caught a glimpse of us as we finished in around about 3 hours as we finished just before 1pm.

Belinda was so happy to see us and was overcome with emotion as she thought of what Tim had achieved. She was also very excited to tell us that she managed to finish in 82 minutes, well ahead of the 90 minutes she had set when she decided to enter.

Then to cap off a great day, we joined all the Cool Runners at the Bondi Hotel for a nice lunch and some rehydration.