So I’m not signed up to the Cleland Trail Championships after dying at the end of Mt Crawful a few weeks back and then having a bit of a shocker at the Murray Bridge Half last weekend. I figure some time off will be nice to try and recover properly when a well meaning friend, who possibly wants me dead, says I should do it and OK, sure, why not, seems like a good idea.

I jump into the car to head up to Cleland and my fuel warning goes off and there’s no petrol stations between where I am and the race so I decide to try and roll any of the downhills I can to make sure I don’t run out. It’s an excellent strategy except for the fact that I live at the bottom of the hill and the race is at the top, and there’s not a lot of fucking downhill bits, and whadda ya know, the race is not all that different.

There’s a car smashed into a tree at the corner of Greenhill and Mt Lofty Summit Rd and I think, yeah mate, I know how you feel that’s probably me in a few hours. At least the road down to the Cleland car park is all downhill so beauty, I roll in and see that some people might be good at running trails but can’t park for shit. You see those two lines? Weird concept I know, but how about you get your car in between them so someone can park next to you, wankers. I end up squeezing mine in between a car and some trees and it’s so tight I now have some racing stripes up the side.

I see a few of my arch nemisiseses at the start – there’s Dave “Oh I’ve got 22 broken ribs and probably won’t go very well” Hughes, and Mark “I use a tyre tube and old plastic water bottle as my hydration device” Parnell, both who have beaten me recently, and let’s be honest, they’re not alone in that department.

I decide to start a fair way back because I’m going to take it easy, test out some new nutrition and hydration, have a fancy new Ultimate Direction bottle belt from my friends at BKT (which breaks half way through and suddenly Mark’s tyre tube isn’t looking so stupid), and the starter’s bell goes and of course I take off like a startled rabbit because that’s just how I roll baby.

According to my Strava we’re 2kms in before we hit a bit of bullshit upness, but the way I remember it, it was up from pretty much the get go and I’m puffing and walking almost straight away. I let people pass me and want to think “yeah, go ahead you fuckers I’ll see you later” but we all know the truth is I’ll not see any of them again.

Because we’re quite close to the main Mt Lofty Summit Trail, AKA the Lorna Jane Highway, a guy walking past sees us and assumes we’re just going to the top and says “Not far to go now” and mate, we’ve literally got 16.99km of the 17km course to go but yeah, thanks.

I also see Coralie, one of the top runners, walking back towards the start and ask if she’s OK and she says she’s done something to her hammy and because I’m going uphill at the time think, fuck, could handle finishing about now myself.

I’m super grateful that a few people say how much they like my blogs, and one lady goes a step further and says she likes my ‘colourful language’ and hey lady, if you think my language is colourful you should check out my shorts. Which a lot of people do because I get a few comments about them as well. And in a moment of seriousness, I say to someone what a fucking great time it is to be alive when Nike do colours like this for men. It’s only later when I repeat that sentiment that someone seems surprised they’re men’s shorts and mate, I barely fit into a men’s XL these days so sure as shit won’t be getting into any women’s pants any time soon. And wait, that came out wrong. But also accurate.

At the first big up, I get to the top and turn around to give everyone some, ah, ‘encouragement’, including my friends Lachy and Caity who are right behind me and promptly belt off past me because they’re both assholes. Thankfully, the up is followed by a bit of down, which I guess proves that old saying, and I manage to sneak past a few people which is nice because it doesn’t happen very often.

It’s on one of the downs I meet Steam Train. We’re bombing down together having a laugh at how much fun it is when he says “Yeah, I’m like a steam train going up, and chaos coming down” and fuck. yes. I’m on board with that.

After doing a loop around Cleland and seeing dingoes which I think we can all agree are pretty awesome, I skip the Azaria jokes and  go for a massive downhill smash. The first part is pretty fucking rad on a nice wide trail, where I manage my first jump shot and holy. fucking. shit. The photographer absolutely nailed it and I think we can all agree I’ll need to do something else next time because I will never do a jump shot better than this.

This is followed by some epic single trail where we’ve been warned not to overtake unless it’s safe cause it’s a bit sketchy in places, but the shorter distance slower runners who are already on trail are fucking legendary and more than happy to step off while I come hurtling down past them like the giant rock at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I’m keeping pace with another runner chatting and flying and having the absolute best time until we come around a corner and what. the actual. fuck. It’s like the fucking Port Elliot Bakery have opened up a pop up shop and there’s a good 40 or 50 people lined up.

(It reminds me of the time I had breakfast with Kevin Costner in LA. Some friends and I had to line up to get into this waffle joint and as we were waiting to get in two dudes wandered up, looked at the length of the line, and one of them said to the other “nothing tastes good enough to line up this long” and fair point. Although I waited, then got to sit next to Kev while I had my pancakes. Which has absolutely fucking nothing to do with anything but I do get to tell that story now and also… get the fuck out of the way people!)

Fuck. This. Shit.

Now I should explain two things, and one of them is an apology. Sort of.

First thing is, when we came up behind the bakery line I yelled out ‘runners are allowed to overtake walkers’ because I thought I’d, you know, just throw that concept out there and maybe it would prompt the walkers at the front to pull over and let a few of the 600 people behind them past. But someone yells back, and I reckon it may have been Ol’ Mate Broken Ribs, “there’s too many” and yep, we’ve gone from a cheeky 4:40 pace to fuck this is bullshit.

The second thing is, I actually don’t care about how much time I lost, in reality it was probably only a minute or two, it was just really really fucking great fun smashing down that single trail. I’m generally speaking a fairly shit runner, but I love having a bit of a yeeha on the descents so was pretty bummed that it got cut short.

I was even more bummed that when we did finally reach the bottom and I’m like beauty, now I can run except no I can’t because now there’s the longest, fuckiest hill and I can barely walk up it let alone run. Although by now some of the long course runners are coming through and apparently they can run it just fine. Matty Hulk comes past and between gasping for air I give him a massive cheer and rev up because Matty is awesome. Everyone looks at me like I’m a bit mental and well, yes. Duh.

We finally get to the top, and there’s a whole bunch of ‘motivational’ signs, one of which says “no one’s ever drowned in their sweat”, and honestly, I call bullshit. Anyone who’s ever run with me during summer, or spring, or autumn and sometimes even winter, will know what I’m talking about. And look, I’m not saying that’s me in that old Lynx ad, but I’m also not saying it’s not me.

I’m with one other runner when three kangaroos hop right between us and he says “ah, that made the run up that hill worthwhile” and mate, they were fucking kangaroos. If they’d been white rhinos or the Port Elliott Bakery Pop Up Shop maybe, but nothing makes that bullshit hill worthwhile. Although yeah, the kangaroos were pretty cool and I laugh and say how funny it is that the other 600 runners will be saying “what kangaroos” because it was just lucky timing for us.

I’m pretty fucking stoked most of the elevation is now done and it’s a decent Wine Shanty Trail cruise to the end and I’m traveling OK, leap frogging with Steam Train and a few other people including Ridiculously Good Looking Couple dressed in all white who don’t appear to know what perspiration is. Steam Train has dropped me, and just when I think I might have Ridiculously Good Looking Couple covered nope, they’re off again and out of reach and I don’t know who’s washing their clothes, but they’re doing a bloody good job. Very, very white. Omo will no doubt be in touch.

With about a km to go I catch up to a guy who looks likes he’s done, walking to the finish, so I give him some words of encouragement and he decides to run and mate, I wanted to motivate you but I didn’t want you to fucking beat me and now I’m forced to stupid sprint the last 600m and fuck. me. I can barely manage my third jump shot of the day as I cross the finish line.

I’m pretty fucking grateful to not need any help at the first aid tent this time around too because they’ve got a full house in there.

With the race done, I’m now faced with the task of rolling home and am doing pretty well until I come up behind some cyclists and actually, it’s pretty sweet because I’m rolling at about the same speed they are. I then turn off and get stuck behind a Mazda 3, and they still have engines in them, right? Because he’s doing all of about 40 down the hill and fuck. me. It’s the long ridge descent all over again. We finally pop out on the main road and there must be some vintage car event on because there’s cars from back when Jesus played for Nazareth and even they’re going faster than Red Mazda and fucking hell, I need to get to a petrol station mate. Which I eventually do. Not dead. Not stranded. And fuck yeah.

 

I don’t send out newsletters very often, because I mostly can’t be arsed, and sure as shit don’t send spam, but if you’re keen to get not really semi-regular updates of the stuff I write, click here to sign up.