Sunday 15th January, race day. Well for most of the runners it’s not really a race, it’s a run you’ve paid money to complete in the hope of a ‘free’ banana at the end.

The day started by being picked up at 05:30 for the 45 minute drive to Dromana. I’d popped down the day before to grab my and my chauffeurs race bibs. We found a park not far from the start lined and quickly found others from the running group. A quick chat, standard pre race group photo and solo toilet stop and we lined up with over 900 others attempting the 28km trail run to Cape Schanck.

This race starts at sea level in Dromana, in the first 3km you run a bit of flat and gentle slope, then it goes up for about 2km as you climb up towards Arthurs Seat.

By the time the incline really increases all but the maddest are walking with purpose up the first hill. It quickly heads off the road and on to trails, which are quite crowded as the runners are still very bunched up.

Once the incline levels off a bit we all return to running, 3km down, 25km to go. The first hill is by far the worst, but the rest of the run has many short and some short and sharp hills. Trail runners call this type of trail ‘undulating.’

Each road or aid station has a number of volunteers, these wonderful people do a great job of cheering you on and supplying water and energy gels if required. One of the aid stations later in the run had a young child with a water mister offering to spray runners to help cool them. Fantastic.

At about the 6.5km point, just as we approached a dam there was suddenly yells of ‘wrong way!’ I was just following all the other runners ahead and plenty behind were following us. The trail had the orange markers on it. A few of us stopped and looked back, Rohan the race organiser had just arrived, and confirmed that we were indeed going the wrong way! Someone had moved some of the markers overnight. Luckily for those that went the wrong way, it loops behind the dam and meets the correct trail on the other side of the dam wall, adding about 550m to their run.

The trail was mostly undulating now, some really nice bush trails and some more open trails, and a couple of road sections. During one of these road sections the leading 56km runners came past. They start from the 28km finish line, run to the 28km start line via a diversion so we don’t end up on the same narrow trails, then follow the same trails as us for the last 28km to the finish.

I was running the flat and downhill sections and the shorter uphills but saving my energy by walking with purpose up longer or steeper hills. I was on schedule to finish in under four hours with 2 hours to complete about 13km, so I figured 8km in the next hour and just a 5km parkrun in the last hour. I had just emptied my 1.5l water/hydration mix in my pack and had used about half of my two smaller water bottles. I stopped at the next aid station to add some more magical powder and refill the larger bladder. Being a bit tired it seemed like the pack fought back, not letting me in easily to access the top of the bladder. Then the powder didn’t want to come out of the sachet quickly. About 1/4 of the powder ended up on the outside. I then added water and promptly dropped the pack but not the bladder. This caused the neatly routed drinking tube to pull back through its guides. I spent over 5 minutes at that stop getting sorted out.

Heading off from that stop I knew there was 8-10km  left. My Garmin was reading at least 2km high at that stage so I couldn’t believe the distance it showed, but the time was right. The short climbs were seeming much tougher now, I was finding I was walking up even the smaller ones. I had been mostly ignoring the kilometre markers until that stage. But knowing my Garmin was off I kept an eye out for the next one, 6km to go. Just a bit more than a parkrun. The next 5km was just repeating the same thing, run downhill and on the flat, walk up the hills tick off the next km marker. At some stage there was some rubber matting down on a up hill, the nice race organisers had put a sign on it saying ‘Escalator, press to start’ or something similar.

The view was great with the ocean visible and I’d glimpsed the Cape Schanck lighthouse a bit earlier so I knew it was close. I could hear what sounded like music when I was over 3km from the finish. Knowing it was close and hearing it really gives you a lift. Then there was the 1km sign, I decided to run the last kilometre, it went so fast I’d swear the sign was actually 500m from the finish. Before I knew it there were people on the side of the trail cheering. I heard my name a few times as I was being cheered by the Raring 2 Run ladies. That was it, across the line in 3:10:50. 28km of trails, over 700m of elevation gained. No doubt it was the hardest run I have completed in my short running career.

After completing my second half marathon at the Melbourne Marathon festival (2:09) I wasn’t sure what to do next. Everyone assumed I’d sign up for a marathon, that being the next logical step up. I didn’t really have any great ambition to complete a marathon. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do one, just that I wasn’t in any rush.

The running group (TXR Runners) that I’m part of does road and trail runs. I’d been to one trail run with them a few months earlier at Lysterfield Lake park. Someone pointed out that my half marathon time qualified me for the Twobays trail run in January. Twobays is a 28km (or 56km) trail run from one side of Mornington Peninsula at Dromana, to the other at Cape Schanck, it includes over 600m of climbing.

So I signed up and started training. Two approaches to the training are required. Obviously the distance is 7km more than a half marathon, so I’d need to build up my distance. But at the same time I would need to introduce hills, lots of hills. I attended TXR Runners ‘Wicked Wednesday’ run for the first time. It’s a 10km loop at Lysterfield Lake park that has three good climbs and a few smaller ones, totalling around 270m of climbing. The biggest climb takes you to Trig Point, the highest part of the park.

My best 10km time on the road is 53:25, my first loop took 1:15:10, and that was moving time, there were a few stops at the top of hills to get my breath back. I did a couple more Wicked Wednesdays (WW) over the next few weeks. I also went long on a couple of Lysterfield Trails Runners Sunday runs. On one of these runs at about 18km of the planned 21km I got a twinge in my right calf. Not so bad that I had to stop running, but I did pause to stretch a couple of times.

I had a few training runs during the week and the calf was still letting me know it was there, but it wasn’t painful so I carried on. That weekend I headed off early Sunday morning for not only my longest run ever, but also on trails. I did the WW loop twice, plus I’d parked in the furthest car park which added another 8km to the run.

The WW loop is the top left part on the map, the bottom right loop was the run to the start of WW and the return around the other side of the lake. This run took 3:27:39 with a total climb of 645m. My calf wasn’t too bad but as it wasn’t going away and stretching didn’t seem to be helping.

A couple of days later I headed off to see a physiotherapist about the calf. Shortly thereafter I was diagnosed has having a grade one calf strain. I was given a few exercises to do and told no hills or speed work for a week or two. With Twobays three weeks away the plan was one week of flat running, the second week would introduce some gentle hills and week three is taper week before the big run. He seemed pretty confident that I’d be ready for the run.