Exploring Tasmania’s North East Coast

With the Tassie Trail Fest behind me, it was time to head further east to the coast and sneak in a bit of exploring. First stop was Binalong Bay. A few years back this was described as one of the “hottest” spots to visit by Lonely Planet, and about forty seconds after getting there I could see why. (Although it was anything but hot when I arrived!) Sand so white even Donald Trump wouldn’t have any excuse to discriminate, and water so blue it was second only to my toilet bowl after loading it up with some Toilet Duck. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly beach weather while I was there so there was no swimming on the agenda, but I did go for a nice long walk, climb on some rocks, get some ridiculously fine white sand in my shoes, and take some pictures of me staring meaningfully off into the distance for my Instagram account.

After that I worked my way down towards Freycinet and stopped at the nearby town of Swansea for the night. Having stayed in the Bates Motel in Derby for three nights, the Swansea Motor Inn was basically like the Ritz Carlton. Double bed. Bathroom. No bird shit on the carpet. No vomit in the bin. OK, to be fair, that last bit was my fault at the last place – if you missed that story feel free to read it in all it’s glory right here.

Anyway, the hotel, was pretty plush by comparison. And the Salt Shaker cafe down the road was pretty epic too. To celebrate my awesome hotel room I ordered basically one of everything from the menu and dug in. There was oysters, seafood chowder and scallop pie. If you’re ever in the neighborhood. it’s well worth a visit. Tell them Sputnik sent you. They won’t have any idea who I am, but it would be an awesome thing to do anyway.

The next day I headed down to Freycinet – for those of you as stupid as me, it’s not actually pronounced Fray-see-net. But Fray-see-nay. It’s French. Or something. Whatever. I went there. The jewel in the crown there is a place called Wineglass Bay. Cause it’s kind of curved. Like a wine glass. I suppose. I plotted a bit of a loop run that I was guessing would be about 11 or 12kms. Out to the left, check out Wineglass Bay, then cross over through the bush to the other side of the peninsula to Hazard’s Bay, and back again. How hard could it be? If you’re a decent runner who didn’t run/crawl a 45 km trail marathon a few days earlier, probably not that difficult at all. If you’re a bit overweight, quite a bit out of shape, and coming off a 7.5hr trail marathon combined with a marathon 12 hour spewing effort, a little more difficult than I may have expected. I’m also ridiculously scared of snakes, so some of the single track sketched me out a bit. I tried telling myself there were enough people around to have scared them off. But the truth is there weren’t that many people around. And Tiger Snakes aren’t that easily scared off anyway. So I spent half the time fairly convinced I was going to be bitten by a snake and die a slow and painful death alone in the bush in a place with a fancy french name.

Turns out none of that happened, which you’ve probably guessed by now. And instead I completed my loop. Had a Gatorade, didn’t spew, then drove up to the Tourville Lighthouse to check out the trail there – one of Tasmania’s 60 Great Short Walks. In this case, really short as it was only 600m. The weather was rolling in by this point and although I was, as always, wearing my awesome ioMerino clothing to keep me warm, I decided I was ready to put my feet up so I headed back to Coles Bay, met up with Chris and Simon from Adventure Types (who’d arranged the Tassie Trail Fest) and Flix the Freak. OK, that’s not his real name, but this is a guy who rode his bike 400kms from Hobart up to the Trail Fest, helped set everything up, then went out and ran the marathon. And won it. So yeah, he’s a bit of a freak. Lovely bloke though, and an epic runner. Obviously. We met up at a local cafe where I ate a bowl of hot chips. And they didn’t. Which probably explains why they’re all quite fit looking. And I’m not.

Then it was back to the Swansea Ritz Carlton for another awesome sleep. The novelty of being in a clean bed and not feeling like I’d smoked a carton of cigarettes by the time I woke up in the morning hadn’t yet worn off – and neither had the stink from three days in the Ashtray Hotel. That night I decided against another indulgent feast and instead tucked into a smorgasbord of left over bits and pieces I’d bought for the trip. When I do a road trip, I have a bad habit of hitting the local supermarket when I first arrive and buying enough food for 18 people. For about four months. So that night I chowed down on a combo of baked beans, salt and vinegar chips, bread rolls and an assortment of other snacks, all washed down by a couple of cans of Mike Tyson ‘Black Energy’ drink I’d found on special at the Reject Shop. I’m not entirely sure calling it ‘Black Energy’ is entirely PC, but I sure as shit won’t be telling Mike that cause I doubt very much he’s all ears. And apparently it’s Poland’s best selling energy drink. Seriously.

On the last day I drove back to Launceston Airport with a minor diversion to Cataract Gorge – just outside of the city. It reminds me quite a bit of Morialta in my own home town, and I’m sure if I lived there, (in Launceston, not the Gorge), I’d probably go running there all the time. I did one of the more modest walks, checked out some of the old historical buildings, then chickened out of doing the full loop through Snake Gully, because it was called Snake Gully and my guess is if they’re using the same amount of imagination they did when naming Wineglass Bay, there’s a fair chance there’s a shit load of snakes in Snake Gully and my interest in seeing any of them was whatever’s less than zero. So I did a cheeky little out and back then drove to the airport, getting their nice and early. Too early as it turns out as Launceston Airport isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis and I had to wait an hour to check in. I suppose I could have gone and sat at one of the fine food and beverage establishments to kill the time, but since there weren’t any, I flogged a spare wheelchair instead and sat in that instead.

And that, my friends, was my Tassie Trail Fest adventure.

Running the Tassie Trail Fest Marathon

After having a few random micro adventures in north eastern Tasmania, hanging out with echidnas, and wrestling leeches, it was time to get my act together, stop faffing about, and get ready to run. After all, the main reason I’d headed south in the first place was for the Tassie Trail Fest. All week I’d been saying I’d probably do the half marathon, so I didn’t kill myself out there doing the full. I was still a bit shaken from the 60km Tarawera Ultra where things had all gone horribly wrong, and I wasn’t sure I was in good enough shape to run the full marathon all that well. The last thing I wanted to do was run myself into the ground on what was supposed to be race number one of five for the weekend.

As is often the case though, ego and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) got the better of me and at the 11th hour I decided I was in for the full marathon. “I’ll take it easy” I thought. “How bad can it be?” I thought. Ah yes, famous last words.

I turned up at the starting line with a long list of bad omens. I hadn’t eaten a decent meal the night before. (ie no pizza or pasta, my usual pre-run ritual. It was a small town and I had to scrounge what I could.) For the same reason, I hadn’t had a decent breakfast the morning of the run either – another important piece of the puzzle. What’s that old saying? “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” or something, right? Exactly. On top of that, I’d accidentally taken the wrong running shoes – bringing a pair with way too many miles, and way too many hole in them, instead of my comfy new pair. Hey, they’re the same model of shoe and they looked the same when I packed in the dark! An innocent, but stupid mistake. There were few other things as well, but really the biggest stuff up was yet to come. And at a time when you least need one – mid-race.

When the race started, I was still messing about taking photos of everyone so I literally started at the back of the pack. I’m cool with that, it’s not like it’s ever going to cost me a podium finish or anything, but it does create a real issue with one of my biggest hang ups – the etiquette of over taking. Especially in trail running, people have all sorts of strengths and weaknesses. Some are strong uphill, some downhill, some on the flats, some on the technical single trail, and some on the nice, open fire trails. So we all lose and make up time in different places.

Me, I’m pretty much crap at all of it, but in a field like this, there were a few people who I was ever so slightly faster than at the start. On a wide trail, it’s no problem. You just pop out to the right and plod past. Maybe they’ll catch you later, maybe not. Either way, it’s all good. It’s a different story on single trail though where you have to ask someone to edge over so you can overtake. It’s one of my worst nightmares asking people to move so I can go past, only to look like a bit of a flog a mile or so down the trail when they come shooting past. Maybe it’s a chip on my own shoulder and no one else cares, but I really struggle with it. I do enough stuff to look like a flog without accidentally adding to the already long list.

Needless to say, I did eventually pass a few people and settled into a nice position, probably about three quarters of the way back where I usually am. Hardly anyone overtook me in the first 20 or so KMs, and I sure as shit didn’t over take anyone else, so I guess I ended up in about the right place.

And for those 20 or 30kms I did OK and was about as happy as I can be running 44ish kms of trails. Then the wheels fell off in spectacular fashion. At the time, I didn’t know why, and I genuinely spent the last few hours of that race planning my retirement from running anything longer than about 200 meters. Even tough runs can still be a version of fun, but at about the 30km mark of this one I started to feel so ill, I couldn’t even break into a Cliff Young shuffle. I felt like I wanted to throw up and had zero energy.

To put this in context, it was pretty much exactly the same experience I’d has at the Yurrebilla 56km ultra six months earlier, and at the Tarawera 60km Ultra the month before. After six years of running and never experiencing gut problems of any sort, clearly the old body had given up the ghost and I was now one of those people, or so I thought at the time.

I now have a slightly different theory: I’m a bit of a dickhead. A theory that will come as no surprise to many of you, but let me explain why it’s relevant in this particular instance.

After Tarawera I ended up in the medical tent with extreme nausea. ie a pretty bad case of the chucks. And much like Tarawera, in Tassie I found myself unable to keep any food or drink inside my body for the back half of the race – or for about 24 hours after the finish for that matter. Not ideal when you’re pushing your body to go those sorts of distances. After Tarawera the medical staff asked me if I’d taken any ibuprofen. Now before I hear all you runners tsk tsk tsk-ing and waving your finger at me like a naughty boy, I should say I’ve taken all sorts of pain killers over the years when I’ve needed them and never had a problem. Ever. I know taking these sorts of things is frowned upon these days, but having never had a problem before I figured I was a bit above and beyond all that. But the medicos at Tarawera were convinced that was where my problems had come from, and thinking back, although I can’t recall for sure what, if anything, I took at Yurrebilla there’s a red hot chance I popped a few Nurofen there as well.

Regardless of whether or not they were right or not, I decided that moving forward I wouldn’t risk it and I’d play it safe and stick to plain old Panadol/Paracetamol if I ever needed anything mid-race in the future. So let me tell you what I thought happened on the day, and then what actually did happen on the day.

About half way through when my back hurt I reached into my pack, grabbed a couple of panadol, ran for a little while longer, then started feeling sick. I hadn’t taken Ibuprofen so clearly those medicos knew jack shit and I had some other illness, possibly Ebola or some other rare tropical disease that only affected me after about the 25km mark of a race. I walked most of the last 15kms, getting over taken by pretty much everyone who’d been behind me, including a few stronger runners who’d taken a wrong turn and run an extra 10kms. I threw up a few times in the last 5kms of the course, threw up at the finish line, threw up as I was crossing the road, and threw up in the bin in my hotel room. Several times. (Hey, cut me some slack. I know that’s gross, but I was in a room with a shared bathroom and couldn’t make it there so the bin was the best I could do.) And I continued to throw up well into the night, still unable to eat. Even the blue Gatorade I managed to find at the pub down the road when I chanced leaving my room for a bit later in the evening, made it’s way into that bin via my intestinal tract.

And the whole time, all I did was ponder my retirement from running and think about what I might take up instead. For the record, ten pin bowling was fairly high up the list. I also considered becoming a professional hurler, but that had nothing to do with actually considering it as a sport, and everything to do with the fact I’d spent the last 12 hours practicing a different kind of hurling. And if hurling into a hotel room bin had been an Olympic sport, let me tell ya I would have taken home gold for Australia.

But all that’s what I thought happened. Because the next day, after pondering all this, I had a half memory flash back that was then confirmed by the other people in the story. And this is where, a bit like directionally challenged trail runners, my version of events and the actual version of events go in slightly different directions.

You see, as I rolled into the 30km check point, one of my fellow runners asked if anyone had an ibuprofen. At first I didn’t answer cause I was feeling a bit shit and couldn’t quite get myself co-ordinated enough to reach into my pack and grab the panadol. Plus, they were pandadol and she wanted nurofen so I shut up hoping someone else would come to the rescue. When that didn’t happen, I fessed up that I had Panadol, but specifically mentioned I didn’t have Ibuprofen, but she was welcome to grab a couple from my pack. It’s what happened next that qualifies me as Dickhead of the Year. As she pulled out the slide of Panadol, she said, “oh wait, these aren’t Panadol, they’re Nurofen!” I didn’t really pay much attention at the time cause I was feeling shit and just wanted to crawl the last 15kms to the finish line. But doing a post mortem of my race the next day, her words came back to haunt me. “These aren’t Panadol. They’re Nurofen.” (Insert ominous echo.) Nurofen? What the fuck? I’d taken extra special care to make sure I only packed Panadol, and surely I hadn’t made a mistake. Just like surely I’d packed my new shoes and not my old ones. Doh! A quick inspection of the tablets in my pack revealed two things. They were definitely Nurofen. And I was definitely a dickhead.

Now, whether or not it was the Nurofen that caused this problem three races in a row I can’t say for sure. But you’d have to say the odds are they were. If there’s a silver lining to all this, it’s that I may not have that rare form of Running Ebola after all, and just a bad case of the dickheads, which can be pretty easily cured by, well, not being a dickhead. Suffice to say, for all future races I won’t be taking anything stronger than some jelly beans and with any luck, I’ll be right as rain. Back from the dead. Elite ultra running career in tact. And hey, if all else fails there’s still ten pin bowling. Or more hurling.

Oh, and at the risk of rushing through the rest of the story of the Tassie Trail Fest, I didn’t run again for the rest of the weekend, but did manage to get out and about a bit on the various trails, taking photos of the runners who were all not as dickheady as I was. And even though I was disappointed to not be running, I still had a pretty awesome time cheering everyone on, and blinding them with my flash and headlight during the night run. Sorry about that guys.

(You can check out a few pics from the other races below or a full gallery in the story I wrote for the guys at ioMerino.)

With the Trail Fest done and dusted, I had a few days up my sleeve to get my adventure on and go check out a few other things, but that’s a story for another time.

A taste of ‘The Apple Isle’

It’s known as ‘The Apple Isle’ and for those of you from around the world who don’t know, Tasmania is the little island at the bottom of Australia that’s the butt of quite a few mainland jokes and so often gets left off maps. Apparently it got the whole ‘Apple Isle’ name because for many years it was one of the biggest apple growers on the planet. But I wasn’t there for the apples, although I did eat a few while I was there and they were quite nice. No, as usual, I was there for the trail running and adventure.

Weirdly, while I’ve been to quite a few places around the world, there are still plenty of spots in my own home country of Australia that I’ve not yet visited – and Tasmania was one of those. There wasn’t really any good reason for not having been. I simply hadn’t gotten around to it. Especially since getting into this whole adventure lark, I’ve always thought it would be a pretty awesome place to go, but as is often the case, unless you have a specific prompt to go, it just never happens. The Tassie Trail Fest was my prompt to go. So I did.

As usual, my decision to go was a little last minute and I did precious little research on where specifically I’d be going and what else was around. I basically booked a flight, a car, and turned up figuring I could make the rest of it up as I went along. It’s a strategy that’s worked for me before but isn’t one I’d necessarily recommend.

The Trail Fest itself wasn’t due to start til Saturday, which meant I’d pencilled in Thursday and Friday as adventure days. Thursday I checked out the nearby Myrtle Forest Walk just outside of Weldborough before heading off to St Columba Falls and onto Ralphs Falls. It was my first taste of Tassie wilderness and I absolutely loved it.

St Columba Falls is considered one of Tasmania’s highest and most beautiful waterfalls. I have to say, it probably wasn’t one of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen, but then, perhaps I’ve been a little spoiled with some of the spectacular falls I’ve seen in South East Asia. The forest along the way, however, was right up there. They say Platypuses live in the creeks there, although you’d need to be pretty lucky to spot one. You’d have to be even luckier to spot a Tasmanian Tiger – the icon of the Tassie Trail Fest. In days gone by, this area was their prime habitat but they’ve been listed as “presumed extinct” since 1986 – 50 years after the last one died at the local zoo. That hasn’t stopped there being thousands of sightings of them still, including one right there at St Columba Falls by a local ranger back in 1995. Locals are convinced they still live deep in the forests and I hope they’re right.

I may not have seen any platypus or Tasmanian Tigers, but I did get bitten on the back of the leg by something while sitting on a rock by the creek. It hurt like buggery and at the time, I was worried it was Tiger Snake because I am an idiot and a panic merchant at times. I imagined dying a slow and painful death, alone in the wilderness beside that beautiful creek. There’s probably worse ways to go, but it turns out it wasn’t a snake. Or a platypus. Or a Tasmanian Tiger.

 

Next stop was Ralph Falls – and even though the nasty weather was really starting to settle in by this point, I actually thought this 100m high ‘ribbon’ waterfall was much more spectacular making its way down some fairly decent cliffs. While clear, fine weather is usually what people wish for when they’re out and about, if there’s one lesson I’ve learned it’s that there can be real magic in ‘bad’ weather, and the mist rolling in made for an awesome photo before I had to tuck the camera away to keep it dry.

Ralphs Falls - magical weather!

On the way back to the car from the main lookout I found a turn off on the trail and followed it for a while to the top of the falls, but because I didn’t have a map and the trail was quite over grown, I got a bit sketched out and turned back after a while. OK, I confess, mostly I was worried about being bitten by another killer platypus. I now know it was a nice 4km loop trail and wish I’d done it. But when you’re in the middle of nowhere by yourself, without proper supplies, and scare of Tasmanian Tigers, the last thing you want to do is hit up a trail that goes for who knows how long and who knows where. One for next time!

Besides, with a trail marathon coming up on the Saturday I wasn’t wanting to put too many miles on the legs so I was happy to keep things pretty mild, do some short walks, and say ‘hi’ to a couple of very friendly echidnas along the way.

I spent that first night in one of the event’s luxury tents. It turned out they were so luxurious they came with their own water feature courtesy of 12+hours of relentless rain and a leaky roof. So in the early hours of the morning I was forced to abandon ship and stay warm and dry in my car. Ah yes, adventure comes in many shapes and forms, and sometimes when you least expect it.

On the Friday, again without any sort of plan, I just jumped in the car and headed off, coming across the Blue Tier Giant Trail – a forest trail to view some giant gum trees. Seemed as good an adventure option as any to me. It was raining, but I was rugged up in my ioMerino as usual, so I braved the elements and set off on what was supposed to be a short, easy walk. The Blue Tier Plateau is an exposed, sub-alpine plateau 600m above sea level and this particular walk goes through huge eucalypts, musk, myrtle, mosses, ferns, and a shit load of leeches. Not that anyone mentioned the leeches. And damn do I hate leeches.

I made it to the Blue Tier Giant without any issues. Just a bit wet. And this tree really is a giant. Perhaps not on the scale of the redwoods I’ve seen in the USA, but it is seriously big. In fact, it’s the widest living tree in Australia and takes 15 people to wrap their arms around it. I was 14 people short so didn’t bother trying to test that. instead I just stopped and took a few rain soaked pictures. Big mistake. As this probably gave some blood-sucking hitch-hikers the opportunity get on board. Half way back to my car, I felt the not unfamiliar bite of leeches on my legs and feet, and sure enough I was covered in the little bastards. If there was any good news, it’s that they weren’t killer platypuses. And they were the regular leeches and not the dreaded vampire Tiger Leeches that need a nuclear arsenal to remove. (All jokes aside, Tiger Leeches are a real thing. I googled and it tuns out Leeches are hermaphrodites and devoted parents. Which is kind of cool but I still hate them.) Can’t say I felt all that lucky at the time that I’d managed to pick up just regular leeches, standing on the side of the road, stripped down to my undies, standing in the rain, trying to pull them off my legs and pick them out of my pants, socks and shoes. Not a great look and not my favourite part of this whole adventure thing that’s for sure!

That night I relocated to the nearby Dorset Hotel in Derby. Considering the town of Derby has a population of around 200 it’s fair to say accommodation options there are fairly limited. And with 300+ trail runners and sundry hangers on hitting town for the Trail Fest, I was pretty lucky to find somewhere to sleep at all. After seeing the room, I’m not sure I’d necessarily consider myself lucky exactly, but at least it was dry. Full of spiders and about 30 years worth of cigarette smoke, but dry. I’ve stayed in some pretty shit places in my time, but this may well be the shittest. You never want to write terrible things in case the people you’re writing them about see them – awkward! But in this case, I think it’s fair to say there’s ‘Ye olde worlde charm’. And then there’s… whatever this was.  For anyone considering visiting Derby in the future, I can highly recommend never staying there. But hey, sometimes dodgy hotels are all part of the adventure and the sheets were clean(ish), the shower was warm, and Leonie the publican was actually pretty cool beneath her gruff, chain smoking exterior.

Want to say ‘hi’?

Want to say hi in 2016? As always, a lot of this is subject to change, but for now at least, here’s where we plan to be in 2016.

 

January

17th. Undies Run. Adelaide, South Australia.

(24th> New Zealand)

February

6th: Tarawera Ultra. Rotorua, New Zealand.

 

March

12th-14th. Tassie Trail Fest. Derby, Tasmania, Australia.

20th. Bay-City. Adelaide, South Australia.

 

April

3rd. Clare Half Marathon. Clare, South Australia.

24th. Cleland SA Trail Running Championships. Adelaide, South Australia.

 

May

1st. Greenbelt Half Marathon. Adelaide, South Australia.

11th-15th. Ultra Trail Australia. Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia.

22 May. Sturt Gorge Trail Race. South Australia.

29th. Barossa Marathon. Barossa Valley, South Australia. TBC

 

June

10th-13th. Melrose Fat Tyre Festival. Melrose, South Australia.

19th. Mt Misery Trail Race. South Australia. TBC

25th. Surf Coast Trail Marathon. Torquay/Surf Coast, Victoria, Australia.

 

July

24th. Hills to Henley (30km). Adelaide, South Australia. TBC

 

August

14th. Adelaide Marathon. Adelaide, South Australia. TBC

27th. Kangaroo Island Marathon. Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

 

September

18th. City-Bay. Adelaide, South Australia.

25th. Yurrebilla Ultra. Adelaide, South Australia. TBC

 

November

6th. Kuitpo Forest Trail Run. Kuitpo, South Australia.

TBC. Blue Lake Fun Run. Mt Gambier, South Australia.

 

 

Running the Jagged Edge

Everyone has a dream or two, and for the past five years running the Big Sur International Marathon has been one of mine. Don’t ask me why, because honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I can’t even remember how I first heard about the race. But ever since I did, I’ve wanted to run it. This is a race that takes in 26.2 miles of coastal road between Big Sur and Carmel on the Californian ‘Jagged Edge’ Coast. And it’s not an easy race to get into. It typically sells out in minutes, and when you live in Australia, trying to enter at the start of their day, means getting up in the middle of the night to try your luck and see how fast your internet connection and typing skills are.

For me, that meant waking up at 2:30am to fire up the computer and, beyond my wildest dreams, I managed to secure a spot. Which is probably just as well because they’ve since announced they’ll be moving to a lottery system from 2016. So no more ‘the quick and the dead’. It will be pure luck from now on. Having entered, I then had to start the hard work. I’ve been carrying a chronic injury for well over a year, and the last marathon I ran was the Surf Coast Trail Marathon last June when I had a very, very tough day at the office and dragged myself across the finish line in pain, well after most people had already gone home.

I don’t enjoy training of any sort, but over the past 6+ months managed to stay disciplined enough to work hard with my rehab trainer and work towards being marathon ready. At least I hoped I was. In the few months before the race, I completed a few Half Marathons, but still wasn’t 100% certain my body would be up to a full Marathon. And let’s face it, America is a long way to go to run half a race. So I was more than a little nervous.

Usually marathoners have a ‘taper’ week in the lead up to a big run, where they take it easy so they can go into the run with their body well rested and ready to go. Naturally, I did the complete opposite. I landed in the US a week before the race, and proceeded to run every trail I could find. It wasn’t conventional wisdom, and it could well have been my undoing, but the temptation to get out there and run a bunch of new trails was too much to resist. In fairness, I did have a day or two off, but still managed to cover more than 106kms/66miles in the week leading up to the race – which was easily my heaviest weekly running load in well over 12 months! In fact, I rarely ever run that far in a week!

Running the race itself consisted of waking up at around 3am in order to catch a 4am bus from the finish line, all the way back to the starting line, a little over 26miles away. Needless to say it was cold and dark at that time. Naturally, I had my ioMerino on, but I also have a confession to make. I’d gone to Walmart a few days earlier and bought a cheap tracksuit to wear at the start line. Yes, I know, synthetic sacrilege, right? But race protocol for a cold race morning like this, is to wait til the very last minute before the race starts, then take off your outer layers and leave them at the starting line where they are collected and donated to charity, and there was no way I was going to leave my beloved ioMerino there. (Sorry charity people for the crappy Walmart tracksuit!)

Starting a race in the early hours of the morning, but then running for around four hours always has temperature challenges. And it’s even worse when you’re running from cool, windy shade, to full sun and back again – the range of temperatures can be pretty significant. Not to mention variations in your own body temperature. Typically, I’d say the temperature ranged from a little over freezing at the start up to somewhere around the 20c/68f mark – and yo-yo-ing everywhere in between throughout.

While some runners went for shorts and singlet, I knew the cooler weather would be uncomfortable and opted instead for a Vital long sleeve with an Altitude T layered over the top. This kept me warm at the start and through the cooler sections, but thanks to its natural breathability and temperature regulation, meant I didn’t overheat when it warmed up. Even when I worked up a bit of a sweat and ended up a little damp and the wind picked up, the MicroMerino® kept me warm. It’s one thing to read about these benefits, but when you’re out there and your comfort really depends on it, it’s nice to know there’s substance behind the promises. Running a marathon is difficult enough without also having uncomfortable clothes to contend with. Oh, and I also wore a Highpoint Necktube ‘bandana’ style to keep my ears warm. In cold and windy weather, I really suffer from sore ears, so the Necktube was exactly what I needed. It may have been soaked with perspiration by the end, but it still did the job nicely.

I managed to finish the race in pretty good shape all things considered, and the body held up well – as did my ioMerino. I’m constantly surprized at how many runners are still wearing synthetic DriFit style running gear, or even worse, ‘Killer Cotton’ in these sorts of conditions. I kind of want to grab them and ask them what the hell they are thinking, but the middle of a race probably isn’t the best time to do that! But I’m more than happy to do it now: If you’re a runner, and you run in cooler conditions, you must try ioMerino. Ditch the synthetics and the cotton – (You know Search & Rescue teams call it ‘Killer Cotton’ because of how poorly it performs in cold weather, right?) – and get some ioMerino on you. Like me, you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t try it well before now. And if you’re already wearing it, welcome to the club!