I’ve done the Tower Trail Run a few times before, and I don’t particularly like the slog up to the actual Tower – and when I say “I don’t particularly like it” I think we all know I mean I actually fucking hate it and I will just say there is absolutely no truth to the rumour I started the fire there a few months ago so we didn’t have to run up there this year.

Regardless of the pyro-induced course change to the now towerless tower trail run, when I sign up for this year’s race it’s as much a surprise to me as it is to anyone. Mostly I just want to go back down to the Limestone Coast to do a bunch of stuff I don’t end up doing. Also, why the fuck do they insist on doing this event in the middle of winter when it’s always bitterly cold or pissing down or a whole lot of both? Fuck it was cold.

In any case, here I am, having done approximately two trail runs in about four months and that counts as training, right? It’s a funny thing when your mates run 50s that your mind is like “I’m only doing the 21” and actually, while 21 is definitely quite a bit less than 50, it’s also quite a bit more than nothing and quite a fucking long way. And it’s even further when you’re a bit fat and it’s a bit not flat but I’ll get to that.

Funnily enough, I happen to be chatting to my comedian mate Micky D on Insta the day before the race when I noticed in his stories that he was saying how he was gonna take it easy at parkrun but then later mentioned he’d come 10th. I was like “what happened to taking it easy and running 5:30s? White line fever?” and he replies “Probably the 600m mark I thought fuck this” which is me at the 60m mark of pretty much every race ever.

So for once I surprise myself when I take off at a leisurely pace without trying to podium at the 100m mark of a 21km race. Partly it’s because I’m being sensible and partly it’s because Phil the Race Director decides it’s too cold to stand around waiting for 8am on the knocker and starts us a minute or two early and I’m still faffing about when everyone takes off.

The first bit goes pretty smoothly and we pass what is now locally known as the ‘Fat Shaming Tree’ – a phrase I coined a year or two back for a point on the track where a tree is perilously close to the rail and people like me have to breathe in to squeeze through. As someone says to me later, this year it feels a bit like that tree has grown even closer and yes mate, I hear ya.

As we kick down to the valley floor I decide to let gravity do its thing and am bombing down when I get to the first new part of the course and take a righty where we usually go left. I’ve done the race before but the arrow says right and I figure it must be one of the reroutes and it is a reroute but not an official one and to the motherfucker who thought it would be funny to swap the arrows around, I send my biggest, most enthusiastic ‘fuck you’ your way. Thankfully, or otherwise, local runner Kathy is not so far behind me and yells out to me that I’ve gone the wrong way. I try arguing with her because clearly I know more than her and I don’t want to unbomb back up the hill to the left turn I was supposed to take but fuck it, up I go. And did I already say ‘fuck you’ to the person who changed that arrow? Yes? Good.

I then hurdle a bunch of branches and logs that are across the trail only to find out they weren’t there an hour ago and seriously, who the fuck does something like that? If the person who did it somehow ends up reading this, please know you are just a shit human. And fuck you.

When I finally get to the actual official new bit of the course, there’s a new fat shaming area. This time it’s between a fence and a guard rail that gets progressively narrower until what the actual fuck that is narrow. I’ll have to ponder what to call it, but for now I’m just gonna call it The Gauntlet. And yes, I had to breathe in.

We then run down to and through what is apparently a conservation area surrounded by a prison fence. I don’t see any wildlife or murderers so I’m not entirely sure what that’s all about, but there are a few Bon Jovi boardwalks that are, as the signs very accurately suggest, slippery when wet. I have my camera ready in case someone, and quite likely myself, goes ass up, but instead we all just do some Good Ship Lollipop hand gestures as we try and stay upright and on we go.

It’s at this point I’m thinking this new course is actually quite nice and way better than going up to that fucking tower, when before I know it I’m passing the frisbee golf things, (And yes there are people out there playing), and then working my way up a mountain bike down track and honestly, who the fuck is coming down this on a mountain bike? Evel Fucking Knievel? Or if you’re too young to know who that is, Danny MacFuckingAskill? Because jesus fucking christ some of this is just about vertical and this is just stupid. Stupider than going up to the tower and now I feel bad for flipping off the tower every chance I get. Come back tower, all is forgiven.

I’m never one to shy away from commenting on whether a course is marked well or not, (or pretty much anything for that matter), and can confirm they made some of the new section across the grass almost idiot proof with their Slalom-style markings.

On the final hill towards the finish line, or in my case, the half way mark, for reasons beyond explanation, I set myself the challenge of trying to run some of it. I actually think I’m doing pretty well until Harry passes me… walking. Then heckles me for being “too old, too slow” and fuck you and your ridiculously fast walking Harry.

And that’s just lap number one. Knowing I have to do it all again is hurting my soul.

On the second lap I finally overtake someone, and it’s a volunteer and what I think is his 78 year old mum but fuck it, I’m claiming it. We chat briefly where he rather proudly tells me he’s the one that came up with the new course bit up the MTB track and it’s all I can do to stop myself pushing him into the fucking lake. At least I have Hoo Hoo Lookout to look forward to and hey, I make no apologies for sniggering like a 12 year old every. single. time.

When I get to the top of the stairs I turn around and tell 78 year old lady she’s nearly at the top and try and be encouraging, but because I’m also an asshole I say “I want to tell you the view up here is worth it, but actually, the view down there was pretty great as well” and she just looks up at me and says “Fuck the view” and lady, 100%. Could not agree more.

These stairs a bit shit.

At one point I’m running with one of the amazing 56kms runners who has just stuffed her face with some potato chips from the aid station when she starts choking and I go through the moral dilemma of whether or not attempting the Heimlich Manoeuvre is still appropriate in this day and age because it feels an awful lot like going through that motion in the woods by a lake has Craig McLachlan written all over it. Thankfully, she survives without any help from me but I really think it’s time for a new method of helping someone who is choking.

Then it’s time to go up the slip and slide mountain bike rock climbing vertical trail and fuck. my. brown. dog. Wasn’t much fun the first time and as expected, is even less fun second time around. This time I have the company of a few 10km runners who say how glad they are they only have to do it once and fuck those people. The lady right behind me asks if there are any views yet and I reply “only of my ass” because I’m pretty sure that’s all she’s seen for the last few minutes and she says “at least it’s colourful” and, well, yes it is. Thankyou Nike for doing hot pink shorts for people my size.

By the time I reach the top of the climb and see Justyna there ringing her bell like Anita Ward (this is a quite funny but also quite obscure music reference – you’ll have to take my word for it) I’m really not in the mood and suggest she might end up wearing that bell if she doesn’t stop being so damn cheerful. But actually, hearing that bell from 3/4 of the way up the hill was super helpful even if it could just as easily have been a funeral bell.

On the last ascent, the cold wind has kicked in and the temperature has definitely dropped and is that wind coming in straight off Antarctica or something because it is freezing with a capital everything. I’m pretty sure it’s legit colder now than when we started and how does that even work? It’s only when I finish that David from ioMerino shows me the actual temperature is 9.6 but it feels like 3.6 and who even comes up with this shit? Surely it’s either 3 or it’s 9? Because it ‘feels like’ meteorologists are full of shit and just making up numbers now.

Feels like… it’s fucking freezing.

I eventually finish about six minutes slower than last year which all things considered isn’t too bad, and head off to defrost in the shower and nod off… not in the shower. By the time I wake up just after 2pm I realise pretty much every place that sells food in Mt Gambier is closed – even Fasta Pasta closes at 2:30pm so I’m desperately searching online for a pasta joint that’s still open when I have my eureka moment and find a place that says it’s open so I ring just to make sure and oh yeah, the lady says they’re open. I’m pretty desperate for food so I ask if I need to make a booking and there’s quite a long pause before she replies… “we’re a food court mate, so not really” and oh. Note to self, 25acres Pizza Pasta Cafe is part of the food court at one of the local shopping centres with picturesque views of… The Reject Shop. Although their cheese garlic bread is pretty fucking excellent with genuine rejuvenating qualities.

I was gonna finish my race report there, but it would be remiss of me not to mention that on the five hour drive home that I turn into an eleven hour drive going the ‘scenic’ way and stopping to look for birdies, I get a flatty just out of Salt Creek and have to change it in the pouring rain and like adulting in general, do not recommend.