I have absolutely zero intention of doing the Tower Trail Run, because I’m pretty sure I fucking hated it last time I did it, so I stupidly sign up a few days before and plan my trip across and down to Mt Gambier. Instead of my trusty Santa Fe, this time I’m taking a brand spanking new Landcruiser Prado courtesy of the suckers, I mean, good people at Northpoint Toyota and The Awesomest, and… suckers. I take every back road on the map, possibly a few that aren’t, and drive through every puddle and hit every pothole I can find and… suckers. It occurs to me this is probably how I should be doing the trails because the Landcruiser is infinitely fitter, more capable and doesn’t have a fucked ankle. It is, however, heavier. But only just.

Before race day I head out to Ghost Mushroom Lane at night to see the mushrooms that look absolutely fucking nothing like they do in the fancy pictures the fancy photographers take of them on their fancy cameras. To be fair, I did know that, but I do wonder what people who don’t take fancy pictures with fancy cameras must think of it all, and I’m guessing not fucking much. My guess is it’s like meeting your Tinder date for the first time when you realise their profile picture was taken 25 years ago when they still had hair. And teeth. And it was taken in good light. And with a filter (or two) added. Despite every man and his dog wandering around with torches shining light on the mushrooms that glow in the dark much better when they’re in the dark, I manage to take a few half decent pics.

After a day or two of biblical rain, as in literally the wettest Winter day in five years or something, race day comes up Millhouse and we’re good to go. It’s not even as fucking freezing as I remember it can be in this part of the world.

There’s a 5km, 10.5km, 21km (two laps of the 10.5km course) and stupid km ultra (56km – Four laps plus some extra bits just for fun) and I’m all ready for the 10.5km which is a bit of a worry, because I’ve signed up for the 21. A few days before the race I made the mistake of going through the pics from when I first did this race in what I’ve been telling everyone was its inaugural year back in 2017 and fuck me a) i just checked and as usual I’m wrong and it started in 2016 and b) there’s lots of upness. How a 10.5km course can have about five hills and 13kms of elevation is not only beyond me, but the laws of physics, and fuck me there’s a lot of upness.

I start by getting ready to shoot the ultra runners taking off, and after making a joke about how I’m such a dickhead for running off in the wrong direction at the Sturt Gorge race to take pics of them starting, I belt off up the road… in the wrong fucking direction. Again. I shit you not. Got the first bit right, missed the turn off left, and was standing on top of the hill waiting for them to run past when I saw them running in a completely different direction and fuck. me. A quick sprint down a grassy knoll and managed to take some absolutely shit photos that could be of anything it was so dark. But hey, I tried.

I wander back to the start line and get ready for my race. And off we go. I’m going pretty well until we hit the first little hill, and it’s a shame that first little hill is only 200 metres into the course. It’s not even a big hill, but I barely get to the top without walking, and fuck this is going to be a long day.

We go down a bit, up some stairs a bit, around a bit, past Hoo Hoo Lookout and he he, he he, hoo hoo… then there’s a nice, steep technical drop down to the valley floor and yeeeeefuckinghaaaaa! I’m in my element. 100kgs of gravity on my side, combined with no sense of self preservation, and I make good time for about 400m before we have to run along the valley and climb back out.

 

On the climb out I see a runner I know running up the hill a fair way ahead and shout out to him that he’s supposed to be fucking walking. But it’s the lady behind him, who is walking, who hears me, turns around and shoots something back at me and now I’m pretty convinced she thinks I’ve just shouted at her that she shouldn’t be fucking walking and fuck me, I’m pretty good at offending people, but I do not walk-shame people for walking up hills, or down hills, or across or around hills in races, and now I decide I should probably apologise. But it’s a hill. And she’s quite a way ahead. And I’m walking. And fuck. So I try running up the hill and I’m pretty sure I’m going no faster than most people are walking anyway and every time I think I’m gaining on her, she breaks into a shuffle and pulls away again. And fuck.

I eventually catch up and try to apologise but can’t breathe. Finally I get the words out and she just says “Oh, I knew you weren’t talking to me” and just like that, I ran up that fucking hill for nothing. And then she laughs and says “yeah, now when I review this race I’m only going to give it four stars because someone heckled me for walking” and sorry DJ Disco Phil the Race Director who used to be a DJ and plays excellent 80s music at the finish line which, unlike playing music on the trails, is completely cool. And appreciated. Especially ‘Hit That Perfect Beat’ by Bronski Beat – even if that song was with some random guy singing after the Smalltown Boy Jimmy Sommerville left.

We get to the top of the hill so that we can go down and up and down and up and eventually there’s another bit I can bomb down and I see the cemetery off to the side and think to myself how that may just come in handy on the second lap.

I pull into a drink station and go to chuck a gel wrapper in the bin and at the last minute realise there’s a full bottle of Coke in there and maybe that plastic tub isn’t a bin at all, unless it’s Ronaldo’s bin because just drink water kids (It was big news last week, look it up) and it reminds me of the time I ran the Sydney Marathon and threw my trash in a big garbage bin at the drink station and got abused by the drink station people because it was a bin full of clean drinking water they were using to refill smaller jugs and bottles and hey, in my defence it was a fucking rubbish bin and an innocent mistake, but also sorry to anyone who came in looking for a drink after me that day. (I also didn’t have the heart – or breath – to tell the drink station people that if you’re going plastic cup free you probably shouldn’t have balloons either because dolphins eat them or something, but no one likes a fucking smart ass, especially when it’s me, so in another rare display of restraint, possibly my second this century, I shut the fuck up.)

I play leap frog with a few runners who are way stronger than me going uphill, but if they’re close enough, I manage to bomb past them on the downhills, and it makes the race quite fun, but also a little frustrating that I’m so fat and so so bad at going uphills. But mostly I’m competing with the person I hate most in the world when I’m out there running… younger, fitter me.

The last bit of the path up to the Tower the run is named after is a complete and utter fucking bastard. (Note to RD, maybe you should call it the Complete and Utter Bastard Tower Trail Run?) After taking what felt like about 25 minutes to cover all of 100metres, I let the tower know what I think of it, and bomb down the downhill which has some shithouse uneven stairs and tree roots but I figure at least if I break my leg or my face or my something, at least it will save me doing a second lap.

All up, I finish the first lap feeling pretty fine and dandy and am really cursing my decision to do two laps knowing I have to do all that again. My only consolation is I’m not doing four fucking laps and seriously, what were those people thinking?

The Fat Shaming Tree

There’s one part of the trail where a tree goes super close to the fence, and as I squeeze past it a second time, I do wonder if it’s discrimination that most runners just run past it and I have to Tetris my way past that literal bottleneck that isn’t actually a bottle but you know what I mean. I hope.

I pass a sign that reminds me the park closes at 6pm and start to wonder if I will be finished before that. At this point, a 12 year old comes past me at Flash-speed and what the actual fuck just happened? Turns out the 10km race has started and this whipper snapper is absolutely fucking flying and it’s super depressing. I try and take consolation in the fact I was fast when I was young, even though I wasn’t, and that all the people passing me are only doing one lap, and it’s a pity most of them are actually doing the exact same distance as me and I’m just getting really. fucking. slow.

As I make my way up to that fucking tower again, I start eyeing off the little red berries on the side of the path. I’m thinking they’re either gonna give me energy or kill me, neither of which seems off the table as an option right now.

I’m at about the 17km mark, 4kms from the end, when I start thinking maybe despite all my pissing and moaning and huffing and puffing and photo taking I can put in a half respectable time. Then I remember about six of the last four kms are uphill and fuck. that.

I run a bit further and see a seriously big dog with a seriously small head. As in, possibly caught by the Jivaro head hunters in the highlands of Ecuador small. But the dog itself is big. And ripped. I want to say it’s a Greyhound but apparently the Ocelot I saw at Sturt Gorge wasn’t actually an Ocelot and I’m not actually David Attenborough, so it’s probably one of those man-eating Dachshunds that roam Kuitpo attacking unsuspecting trail runners.

Regardless of whatever fucking type of dog it is, I’m wondering if it’s big enough to ride up that last bullshit hill. That would also involve running fast enough to catch the dog though which is clearly out of the question, so I end up crawling up Bullshit Hill, another 273 people over take me, I go past a fire truck that is doing I have no idea what, and I roll down to the finish line in an official time that happens to be a whopping ten seconds faster than when I did it back in 2017. So take that younger, skinnier, fitter, less broken me!

 

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