Any creative person who says they doesn’t care about feedback is either a) a liar b) a shit creative who never gets good feedback or c) all of the above. So not gonna lie, when I see people at races and they say “Hey I like your race blogs” it’s always pretty nice. Which is a feeling that lasts for about 27 seconds before the abject terror of wondering if I can ever do it again kicks in. 

“What if nothing worth writing about happens” I think?

And then I arrive at a race like Conquer the Summit this morning and the porta loos are all locked and I think to myself “oh this is promising”. Imagine if 400 people turn up and there’s no dunnies. That will be hilarious to write about. So I grab the RD and let him know and dammit, the doors all unlock easily and they’re good to go.

I step inside one of them thinking about how great it will be to christen it and not have to vape the shit fumes of 400 other runners, aaaaaand… no bog roll. So out I go, back to the RD to let him know, and while he’s initially a bit flustered, one of the vollies just happens to have a stash of poo tickets, possibly since the infamous covid shortage of 2021, and it’s all systems go. 

One of my favourite things about this race is the Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony at the start and when that doesn’t happen I’m feeling pretty ripped off until we’re told the person who was supposed to be doing it had a car accident on the way there and fuck. Thankfully everyone’s OK, but suddenly the race is a smoke-free zone and I’m hoping this doesn’t mean we’re all going to have bad luck.

It starts to rain. Which wasn’t in the forecast at. all. And I blame the lack of smoking ceremony. 

It’s start time and if you look up the word “bottleneck” in the dictionary you’ll find a picture of the start of this race and fuck. I hate being the flog who starts too far up front and then gets overtaken by the entire field in the first 200m, so instead I start towards the back and then silently bitch about how everyone in front of me is too slow even though it’s entirely my own fault for doing a shit job of seeding myself.

Thankfully the course opens up pretty quickly and we all spread out and just when I’m getting in to the rhythm of things I see two cows fucking and pull off the path to try and get a pic. Because… obviously. By the time I get close enough to take a decent pic they’re just standing they’re with a ‘nothing to see here’ look but I know what I saw. Even though I’m not sure if they were boy or girl cows and either way, love is love and I’m fine with it.

I’ve run this event quite a few times so I know there’s a pretty decent hill at about he 5km mark and am prepared. To walk. Which I do. And to be perfectly honest, the race goes fairly smoothly for quite a few of the next kms until I start hallucinating that I can hear bagpipes. 

When I see a runner heading towards me wearing a kilt, I realise it’s not a hallucination, (like that time I was convinced I saw a black puma when I was doing the Ultra Trail Australia 100 in the Blue mountains where there are absolutely no black pumas), and it’s just a bloke in a kilt playing bagpipe music. (On his speaker. Not actually running and playing the bagpipes which would have been way more impressive.)

Bagpipe Man

Now I should say, usually when I hear people playing music out loud during a race I want to punch them in the throat and tell them no one wants to hear their fucking music. And you’d think that would be a double punch for bagpipe music, but actually, it makes me smile. Partly because I think it’s funny, partly because I love that bagpipe bit in You’re The Voice by Farnsey, and partly because he’s far enough in front of me and he’s already on the ‘back’ part of the ‘out and back’ section and I only need to hear it for about 20 seconds. If he’d been running at my pace and I had to listen to it for longer it may have been a different story and I’m trying to remember if there’s such a thing as ‘justifiable manslaughter’ and if there is I’m pretty sure this would qualify. 

I plod along until it’s time to Conquer the Summit, which I do. not. do. I do make it to the top, but would not call that any sort of conq. The upside is, after the turn around point at the summit it’s a nice bit of downhill and I run at the pace of a half decent runner for about a km and woo hoo. 

With about 6 or 7kms to go I have a bit of a laugh with a young bloke who overtakes me on a bit of upness, and he’s just a little bit too smug at catching me so I remind him I’m about 100 years older than him.

We go through the whinery hill and I manage to catch him at the end of the descent, (which he seems much less impressed by), and we run together for a while. I’m not sure who’s egging who on, but we both agree we’re possibly going a bit faster than we might otherwise be going at this point in the race and when I tell him I’m not sure how much petrol I’ve got left he says he’s happy because he hates being beaten by “veterans” and fuck. you.

I start to think about whether or not there’s any way I could defend two cases of ‘justifiable manslaughter’ from one day, but actually, he pulls away with about 3 or 4kms to go and I’ve got fuck all chance of catching him.

I do, however, catch up to Lisa and Anna who podiumed (1st and 2nd) the 10km race – which in itself is a minor miracle because they are super speedy and obviously just having a gentle warm down trot back to the start line – and I say hi as a go past while avoiding the temptation to do a fist pump at actually going past someone, at which point they decide to pace me to the finish and fuck. ing. hell. 

I know I’m probably not gonna make the two hour mark, but they’re hell bent on pushing me to see how close I can get, (or possibly because they don’t like me and they know I’m half a chance to keel over and die if I go much harder), and my heart rate hits about the same BPM number as a Dead or Alive track from the 80s and instead of being resigned to hitting 2:04 or 2:05 I’m suddenly running threshold and making all sorts of bad porno wheezing/grunting noises and sorry about that people. 

I cross the line in 2:01 (and four seconds) and although I should probably be pissed off at not being able to knock a minute off and crack two hours, I’m actually fucking ecstatic that a) I got that close and b) didn’t put on an embarrassing I think I’m gonna die act at the finish line like I did last year.

Autumn is here!

Footnote: Massive shout out to the organisers who also announced at the start that they raised $20,000 for charity with this event. And that’s bloody incredible. Take note other races/events/groups. For runners like me, that’s excellent and one of the reasons I go back every year to run it. 

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