Yesterday was my first experience of Mt Coot-tha on foot, I have driven up there a few times but never really paid any specifc attention to what to expect when the time came to run it. I was initially going to start at J C Slaughter falls car park but it looked deserted, I noticed that a car park 1/2k down the road was full of cars so I parked there. This was purely for security reasons.I began running about 6pm after a quick warmup and stretch. The weather was great, I couldn't have asked for better running conditions.
It didn't take long before I reached the start of the climb and settled into a comfortable pace or so I thought. About 1k into the run I looked behind me and noticed a bike rider was also climbing the hill, I could see him putting in a little more effort to pass me. I remember when I lived in Townsville I use to try and keep up with the bike riders up Castle hill, they would hate it but I found quite amusing. Yesterday however I didn't have the legs and so I left him alone.
The next 1.5k is where I felt it the worst, the hill didn't taper and not knowing how much further to go I was becoming fatigued pretty quickly. I actually resorted to walking for about 100m which I was pretty annoyed about considering it was only about 2k into the run. I soon spoted a walker up ahead and so I focussed on catching that person which helped.
I reached the top of the first climb and after this I felt pretty good for the majority of the way back to the car park. The remainder of the run until the lookout is undulating, you basically follow the ridge line for about 5k. I was breathing pretty comfortable by this stage but the legs were a little on the heavy side.
I wasn't looking forward to the last section, what goes up must come down. I don't enjoy down hill running so I took it fairly steady down to the flatter sections back to the start point. Once on the last straight I increased the pace for close to a 1k, running a little under 4min/k pace which felt good, striding out after taking baby steps up the hill was a welcome relief.
I reached the car in 50 mins 30 secs, unsure if this is a slow or a fast time, but I certainly felt that I done a hard session. I paid for it for the remainder of the night, today however I feel good, a little fatigued nothing a day with no running wont fix.
Overall the session was 9.5k in 50 min 30 secs
Monthly total 39.5
YTD 39.5
1 comment:
Hey, well done on Mt Coot-tha Shane! That initial hill just seems to go on forever doesn't it, but then so do the undulations.
50m 30s sounds like a great time to me, especially for your first attempt. If you want to draw comparisons I usually do 52m to 55m for a training run, and did 45m 28s in the race there a few years ago.
I'm looking forward to seeing how much you can lower your time!
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