The worst thing about Covid, aside from you know, the whole death and destruction thing, is when you sign up for an event because you’re capable of doing it and it gets postponed until you’re not, and you decide to do it anyway.

Apparently I must have been quite capable of running 23kms of trails back in 2020, but with the race pushed back to this year I think fuck it, I’ve paid good money for this, so I’m gonna make my self miserable by doing the full 23km distance instead of being vaguely sensible and dropping down to the 16kms. As most of you would know, ‘The Fuck It Strategy’ rarely works out well for me.

I decide to do my usual trick and turn the four hour drive into a 10 hour Leyland Brothers adventure, and travel all over the country side. The weather is shit and everything is muddy AF, so half my detours result in having to turn around and go back the way I came because the car I’m in is epic but I’m as dumb as dog shit at actual 4WDing and I can’t be fucked getting bogged and having to drink my own piss til I’m rescued.

I do however see, and rescue, a turtle and we chat for a while about running since we go at about the same pace. OK, that’s an exaggeration. He’s got me covered on the flats but I get him on the downhills. I then check in to my Motel and look, I’m not saying it was shit, but when the Motel carpark doubles as the driveway to the Thirsty Camel bottle-o you can be pretty fucking sure you’re not at the Hyatt. Other than having the narrowest fat shaming bathroom door of all time, the room itself is comfortable enough and only 500m from Naracoorte parkrun and even closer to Tiny Train Park so I’m calling that a win. I’m telling ya, Naracoorte really does have it all.

I get an early night because I’ve been driving for 5,000 hours and fuck those people in the pub having a good time til all fucking hours even though it’s probably only about 10:30pm. When I do finally get to sleep I feel the sharp claws of a lizard stepping on my face at about 2:30am and spend the next 30 minutes looking for it in my room before I decide I must have just dreamed it. Aaaand it’s time to get up. Naracoorte parkrun is one of those bullshit courses that seems flat and isn’t and did not break any records. Also, fuck Naracoorte parkrun.

I then spend the afternoon looking for birds in shit weather again, and manage to see some red tailed black cockatoos courtesy of a hot tip from a bird nerd mate and although I don’t get any decent pics, I do some wee in my pants I’m so excited to see them. Thankfully it’s fucking raining again and let’s just say I got rained on and it will be our little secret.

Possibly not some of my best work.

I still haven’t decided between using my hydration pack and my bottle belt for the race. When I was leaving home, I was lucky to stumble across the hydration bladder in the cupboard and what the fuck was I thinking when I put it there instead of back in the hydration pack? Lucky for me I’ve remembered to bring it but it turns out I left the actual pack at home so short of running the race holding a two litre bladder, bottle belt and a bum bag it is because I now have a finely tuned nutrition and hydration strategy to test out after a few of my recent race debacles and I’ve got the full smorgasbord of gels and powders and eye of newt to take as I run.

Race morning is looking not too bad, I get there early, get my number, and maybe this isn’t gonna be so bad after all? A few people are trying to decide whether or not to take a jacket and doing my best Keith Martin I tell them they won’t need it. Spoiler alert: never ask for or listen to my advice. I am a fucking idiot. How do people seriously not know this by now?

During the pre-race briefing the RD makes a point of saying the weather looks OK because the sun is out, while behind him the Lexington Steele of storm clouds are coming our way. If you know, you know. Don’t fucking google it and if you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Met him once in Vegas. Loooong story. Pun intended. Anyway, we’re off and the sun is shining and fuck, now it’s raining and I’m wearing a T-shirt and it’s so fucking cold my hands and arms actually hurt. As in I’m literally in pain they’re so cold. I say to the guy next to me “fuck I can’t feel my hands” and he says “You’re lucky you’ve got feeling that far. It feels like I’m running on someone else’s feet” and it reminds me of that advice about how if you sit on your hand til it goes dead and then have a wank it feels like someone else is doing but I don’t say it and probably just as well. It’s uncalled for.

I dick about with my bum bag like some drug dealer minus the adidas tracky dacks, and one of my three gels drops out and fuck, I only have one gel because the zip wasn’t shut properly and the lady running behind me says “Oh were the gels on the trail back there yours?” and fuckity fuck. I now have one gel for the next 16kms and so much for my well planned nutrition and hydration strategy. And sorry to anyone behind me who thought some fuckhead was littering. Definitely a fuckhead, definitely didn’t litter. At least not on purpose. Besides, those Spring gels are like $7.50 each and fuck.

For a little while I also run with a guy with a broken arm and that’s hard core. Even with his arm in a sling he’s faster than me and so although we chat briefly, I’m quickly left to ponder if there’s anything vaguely humorous I can say about the fact he’s broken his humorous and eventually decide I’ve got nothing.

Because it’s been cold and raining with an ice cold wind thrown in for good measure, I’m feeling pretty terrible for the people who didn’t take their jackets and spend ages hoping they’re not dead from hypothermia out there. The course itself is crackerjack although we’ve been warned to watch out for wombat holes and I think that’s pretty funny until, like Lexington did many times, I end up in a random hole and not in a good way. I roll my shit ankle and I want to say it was in a wombat hole or I discovered a new cave out there, but honestly, I can see nothing major that I even stepped on or in. For those of you who don’t know, I only have one ankle, and on my left side I basically have a foot and a leg, and it’s really only thoughts and prayers and at times a bit of tape connecting them so I’m instantly in deep fucking shit and the only cave I’ve discovered is the pain cave. Embarrassingly, I’m actually chatting to another runner at the time and do that full, involuntary, “blarghwhoafuck” type yelp that fuckheads do at such times.

I’m 10kms in, and lucky I only have, ah, 13 kms to go… and I have literally zero funny things to say about the next 12.5kms because the course was great but every step was like someone stabbing me with a fucking knife and every time someone says hi I just say “I fucked my ankle” as if anyone actually gives a shit but it makes me feel 12% better to have a fucking whinge about it.

We run through and past “bush, pines and vines” and I decide that’s probably the slogan for next year’s race (#YoureWelcome) and am bummed I can’t think of anything that rhymes with ‘wombat hole’. I see a pair of bras on a road sign, skip the log crossing which I’m warned is probably slippery, (like I need any extra opportunity to fuck myself up), and instead take the Snakey AF long grass detour.

With about a km to go and having finally dried out after the earlier showers, it starts to rain again. Hard. And wait, is that hail and yes it fucking is. Five minutes from the end and it’s fucking hailing and it really hurts. Not as much as my ankle, but hail can be a bit ouchywawa.

 

I push on feeling like Scott of the Antarctic, cross the finish line, and ask for some ice which is probably vaguely ironic as everyone’s huddled under the various shelters protecting themselves from the ice falling out of the sky. Except now it’s fucking sunny again and what. the actual. fuck. Mother Nature? Just taking the piss now.

My friend Kat helps me by getting me snacks because I can’t move and when the mayor gives the wrap up speech and says she hopes we had fun even though we had four seasons in one day out there, Kat says “well we didn’t have summer” and I did, and still do find this disproportionately fucking hilarious. It turns out Kat, who is not a child, chronologically speaking anyway, has taken third place in the 5km kid’s race and unlike some poor eight year old kid who’s had his hopes and dreams shattered by being robbed of a podium spot, I also fund this disproportionately fucking hilarious and she gets a wombat trophy even though apparently they’re not wombats they’re diprotodons or something which is basically a dino-wombat. Because it’s Naracoorte and there’s caves and dinosaur bones and the whole event is called Megafest because of the Megafauna because those dino-wombats were the size of a hippo even though they were vegetarian and hey, I know the feeling.

I resist the urge to steal the little buggy thing instead of walking all the way back to my car, and on the drive home I pull over to rescue another turtle from the middle of the road and as a car with runners in it drives past I hear someone laugh and say “ah he’s pissed himself” and I want to tell them I just sweat a lot but notice later the turtle has let rip with an almighty wee and apparently it’s a thing they do.

Bloody great event. One of my faves in South Australia. You should probably do it next year. Watch out for wombat holes. And incontinent turtles.

FOOTNOTE: If you’re an RD and want advice on how to mark a trail, ask these guys. Best. Marked. Course. Ever. They get my vote for joint Presidents of the Trail Marking Association that needs to be formed fucking pronto. And first entrants into the Trail Marking Hall of Fame.

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