The story starts back in October when we start training for this epic race. Actually for me it started in about July 2014 when I first asked the run hosts from last year if they would host again for the coming training season- thankfully most were happy to do it which made my job much easier! I missed a whole heap of training runs at the start because I was training for, and then recovering from my attempt at Coast to Kosci. This made my comeback to running extra hard- I’d just ticked off my last running bucket list item and had no desire to run another step. Ever.

But I’d entered Six Foot in December and if I didn’t want to be picked off the course in a foetal position I’d have to move my rapidly expanding bottom.

The training runs that I did get to were heaps of fun as usual, but I realised that being a barge-arse had cost me dearly- Martyn Dawson was back from injury, had stepped up to run with the fast middies and was leaving me to eat dust. That’s great because I don’t like to have it easy, but he had improved so much it was astounding. I spent the last couple of months wondering if I could ever catch up……

Race day I was feeling strong- I’d written down some goal times for various sections and knew that the rest was up to the race gods. Saturday dawned while we were all milling around at the start- that’s the thing about Six Foot Track- you consider not doing the race, but you know all of your mates will be there. Total FOMO. I got to say hello to dozens of running friends while I was looking for coffee and freezing my nuts off. There had been some mix up with wave allocations and a bunch of faster people got pushed up, while I lost my place in Wave 3 and was pushed back to Wave 4. That’s completely cool because I don’t like being hunted down- much better to be the hunter.

When the gun finally went off we’d been in the second row and had a bit of a race to the stairs. It was 10 degrees at the start so it took a while to warm up but once running it was perfect conditions. I got down to Cox’s River in 1:36:48 which was right on target. Crossing the river was the last time I saw Martyn- this probably means I ran too fast to the river however I had a ball on that section! Stuffing some food in I started the big climb up to Mini Mini Saddle. I felt much happier going up here than previous years, Andy Dubois training really helped. In fact last year I lost 100 places between Cox’s and Pluvi, this year I gained 24 places, running 1:32:24!

Running along Black Range was exactly as painful as it always is. Very difficult to keep moving when you just want to rest, but again my training helped. Being able to push through the pain means you can make much more progress than if you allow the pain to slow you down. Yes I know this is obvious but there’s an astounding difference between just moving and pushing on…… I started feeling sorry for myself but tried to consume more food to change my outlook. Hey, whatever works right? I breathed a sigh of relief at Deviation camp ground which quickly became a huge grin as the NRG crew let out a massive shout. Thank you to those amazing people who gave up their weekend just to cheer- it made huge difference and I loved it!

With only 11km to go it was time to go hard. Andy had said to me ‘don’t go too fast down to the river’ which of course I had intended to do, but being sensible is HARD. I also took his comment to mean ‘when you get to the top, make it HURT’ so at least I had that covered. I’d somehow gotten past Petra Erby on Pluvi and Col Woodliffe along Black Range (thanks for the chat ladies!). Then John Doughty just before the road crossing. Unfortunately as always happens in Six Foot Track my legs decided to ping cramp warnings as we crossed the road and I knew that the undulations would make the last few km a bit uncertain. I slowed down a bit, sped up a bit and tried to manage it as best I could. All to no avail- with under 2km to go I was screaming in pain as the cramps hit like a train. I’ll agree it must have looked quite comical to see me rubbing my inside leg and screaming ‘come on!’ but I couldn’t see the humour at the time.

All 3 of those NRG’ers got past me while I was incapacitated but they ran well and deserved to do well. If I’d been a bit smarter and had salt tablets earlier I may have bypassed the cramps but hey that’s racing.

As I came on to the concrete path to the finish chute I realised I was going to be a few seconds over 5:20 so I ran with no regard to cramping and screaming at people to get out of the way- Garmin elapsed time 5:20:05. Bugger.

Luckily I had taken a while to get over the line at the start and my net time was officially 5:19:49 and a 20 minute pb.

So did I have enough to match Martyn? Not a hope in hell, he had a 40 minute pb and came in at 5:08, what a blinding run- congratulations!

There were lots of pb’s that day- I suspect the weather had a lot to do with it. Female course record fell to Hanny Allston, and amongst NRG there were an embarrassing number of great times

David Madden 50 minute pb

Leigh Reynolds 1 hour pb

I absolutely loved hanging around afterwards and chatting to my mates, it’s an epic race in every way.

*all photos by Pippa Bradbrook