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Six Foot Track.
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It's been hard not to be a little despondent today. This morning, while I was struggling around the Trotters
16km Matcham Valley course at not much better than 6 minutes per kilometre, the
Six Foot Track 45km race was starting from near Katoomba in the fabulous Blue Mountains with many friends in the field.
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Blue Mountains.
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Just three months ago "Six Foot" had loomed large in my training plans. Apart from being a very challenging course in a beautiful environment, it's popularity with runners from all over Australia make it a benchmark race to see how good you really are. I would have loved to run it in my heyday when my marathon speed combined with trail-running experience (in training) and strength on hills would have made me a podium contender. But that's easy to say now. Thirty years ago, there were few trail races and they were seen as something of a novelty event. Marathons were everything to me, and I would never have targeted and trained for a specific trail race. Even now, it's rare to find Australia's best marathon runners contesting trail races. The reality is that, even if Six Foot had been a big race thirty years ago (it was just starting out), I probably wouldn't have run it anyway.
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Six Foot Track.
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Nowadays, my attitude to trail racing is different. And three months ago, I was hoping to get a podium finish in the 60+ age group today, and maybe threaten the age group record. I have come close in the past. But it wasn't to be. Health issues intervened and I must consider myself lucky to have been running anywhere today. Nevertheless, I'm envious of my friends who are running and can't help wishing, as I write this, that I was making that helter skelter descent on the scary single track to the buzzing finish at Jenolan Caves, with legs begging for mercy and the prospect of a good time and post-race glow just minutes away. Running just doesn't get any better than that, and it makes me sad to think I may never experience it again.
