World Mountain Running Championships 2019
Villa La Angostura, Argentina.
Friday November 15th, 2019.
‘Australia!’ I hear the caller announce, and after another deep breath I bound into the starting corral, trying to ignore how cold and scared I am. When my feet are finally on that hallowed start line, I breathe a sigh of relief. I made it. After all the challenges and obstacles, I at least have a shot.
I am grateful for the music playing as I try to calm my shaking body and settle my stomach. I’m not sure if I am shaking because of how wet and cold I am or because of the nerves; Likely a combination of both. Last time I stood on a world championships start line I was overwhelmed by the fear of the moment and the fact I knew I wasn’t in shape for what I was about to try to do with how sick I felt. This time, I wanted to enjoy the moment, soak it in a little, and stay as relaxed as possible. As country by country we all huddled together, I could feel the tension in the air around me rise, but for some reason it doesn’t touch me. I’m still just pinching myself I am standing here, healthy, uninjured.
I’m not sure how well my short training base will have prepared me for the challenge ahead, but I have learned the hard way that all of that is out of my hands now and all I can do is use every bit of it. As they count down from 10, I crouch with my hand on my watch, except I swear they must have skipped a few numbers because I don’t even hear the go signal. The crowd around me starts to move, so I take off with them.
It’s a fast start on a flat road, and although it feels easy I think it’s too fast to sustain. ‘Run My Race’ I repeat over and over in my head, easing off just a little. Before long I am swallowed up in the pack and getting dragged along the wet and muddy road by the women around me. In hindsight, the fast starters had the right idea, because 800m in we hit a single track and suddenly I find myself at a complete standstill, running into the backs of women in front of me as I cop it from behind. Damn.
We all scramble along as best we can until it opens out a little, then I put in some work to get back in touch with what seems to be the main pack. I can see women ahead of me I know and I want to try to stick with, so I settle into a rhythm that keeps me in touch. The terrain is muddy and slippery, with lots of turns and obstacles to navigate, but I love that. The worse the terrain, the better I do.
Soon we come to the river crossing, which is a lot higher than when I checked it the day before. I barge in and charge across, ignoring the marshalls in the water trying to help us as I pass a small group that were ahead of me. We are already almost 3km in here and I don’t even know how that happened. Time is passing too quickly and I feel okay, but unsettled and my stomach is turning in knots. Here, though, is where the climbing starts.
At the start of the climb I am still in touch with everyone I want to be. I can see some of my marks just 20-30m ahead and I am in a long line of women winding their way up the trail. After a couple of km of staring at the woman ahead of me and grinding, I get a burn in my legs I am somewhat accustomed to, but this one is slightly different. The soft, muddy terrain and the way it dips and bends has a lot more give and slip than anything I am used to running in Australia. In Aus, I am used to my foot hitting the ground and finding something solid with good traction. On this ground, I sink, and my muscles feel like they are having to work in all new ways, so different places hurt.
Uphill running is already not my forte, and so is something I work on diligently in training. But without experience on this terrain and without a long enough lead in to truly condition my legs to the uphill grind, I find I am challenged even more than usual and unable to stay with the pack after 5km. As I slowly see them slip away it is hard not to descend into a negative mindset, but I keep myself afloat with the reminder that there is still a long way to go and the knowledge that I know I am just as fast, if not faster, than many people on a technical downhill.
I focus on what feels good, on giving all the energy I can to hiking and running my way up. I feel my locket around my neck, a picture of my beautiful deceased brother inside, and remind myself to make use of every opportunity this day presents. With his power as well as mine, every step is a step closer to the top.
Finally, I get the glimmer of hope that my calf burning misery will soon end when we come to a rickety bridge across another river. Here the water is running over the bridge, so there are marshalls the whole way along and we are told there is to be no attempts to pass here. I manage to get ahead of the woman I have been chasing just in time to get to the bridge first, then slowly make up way across as I know getting to the other side safely will be the fastest, rather than risking falling in. From here, I know there is 800m until the top of the climb.
The woman behind me passes me again up the climb, about the fourth time we have switched positions, and I grind a little harder trying to keep up. My stomach still doesn’t feel good as I push deeper into the red zone, but I push that thought aside and focus on using my glutes to power through the pain. Finally, we reach the peak and the proper downhill comes. Time to fly.
I let loose as much as possible, throwing caution to the wind and bouncing off trees and anything my hands can swing off at times. Other times though, I have to be more careful than I want because the drop to one side of the trail is more drastic and dangerous. There is no point going so hard I don’t make it to the finish line. The trail is a mudslide, and I am glad I wore the Salomon SLab ‘Soft Ground’ shoes to give me more confidence on the turns, but still at times the mud is so deep it is impossible not to slide and skid. I am in my element here, and I know in terms of local/Oceania competitors I am leading, but I came here to race the World and I know I have a lot of work to do to try and make up for what I lacked on the uphill.
For the first 2km of the gnarly descent I see almost no one. I have put a gap on the people that were close behind and I know I am travelling fast, but the trail never opens up enough to see more than 50m ahead. Then suddenly I catch a glimpse of both a Peruvian singlet and a Great Britain singlet on the trail ahead. Pacman time.
They become my sole focus, and on the technical descent I can see I am catching them quite fast. However I also know the descent is about to end so I have to make my move now if I want to pass.
I push as hard as I can and get ahead of them, trying to put in as much of a gap as I can muster. There is less than 3km to go now and soon after I pass them the trail flattens somewhat. The number of spectators begin to grow as we get closer to the end of the trail, and all I hear around me are cheers and screams from the many Great Britain crew out there as they urge the woman behind me to keep pushing. I am pushing as hard as I can now, fully red lining because I know there isn’t long left. Still, as we hit a wider and flat part of the trail and run through yet another group of Great Britain supporters, the GB athlete puts in a burst that I cannot match.
The pain and fatigue in my legs and body rises as we get closer and closer to the last 800m of road. I remind myself that here is where I get to make all the training and pain of the year behind me worth it. Although I know I am not in the position I dreamed of nor feeling the way I wanted, there is absolutely nothing stopping me burying myself and protecting my current position for the Green and Gold singlet I worked so hard to wear.
We hit the road and I see the GB athlete start to gain even more ground on me, but I also see a Colombian athlete about 200m up the road that I haven’t seen all race so I know she must be moving slower than me. I try to focus on good running form, and imagine a winch attached to the back of her reeling me in. I am catching her, but it soon becomes apparent that I am going to run out of ground to get to the line before her.
We are running through crowds of people here, the road narrowing as they all step in, trying to get closer to us to scream and cheer. I can hear my name a couple of times, but can’t recognise anyone among the throng of people. It is all a blur of pain and joy. In my mind, as always, there is someone just metres behind me about to steal my position so I push and push all the way to the line, knowing the race isn’t over until I cross it.
Once I cross the line I immediately start to shake again, and the nausea I have been trying to put to the back of my mind all race hits me like a tonne of bricks. The staff cut off the timing chips on my shoes as I stumble through the barricades to the post race area. I stand there for a few minutes, searching for anyone from team Aus or my coach, but can’t see anyone. The thoughts running riot in my mind are emotional and overwhelming.
I raced hard, I gave my all, but it felt nowhere near how I wanted. I don’t know whether to be elated, sad, annoyed, or overjoyed that although I found more challenges out there than I wanted, I refused to give in to any of them. I have no idea what position I came in yet, my head convincing me I wasn’t much better than last years 44th.
As I continue searching for someone to celebrate the moment with I immediately think of all the things I want to work on. A longer time to build base and climbing legs. Dial in ways to settle my nervous stomach more. Don’t overcompensate for nerves by starting too relaxed. More experience racing tougher competition. More experience on terrain I can’t access in Aus. The list in my mind goes on. Looking at the clock I see almost 8 minutes have passed since I crossed the line. A kind staff member asks me if I am okay as I stumble about teary eyed, continuing to search the crowd.
Finally, Crosbie appears and makes a beeline for the entry point to the athlete area. Soon I am wrapped up in a congratulatory hug that I envision coming not just from the man who has coached me from an overambitious fun-runner to where I am today; but also from the countless other people and support crews that worked just as hard as I did to get me to the start line. The dream race can come another day. Today, we did it. With the help of many I executed the best race I was capable of, learned many new lessons along the way, and made another huge step forward in my still very fresh career. Dream yet to be realised, but mission well and truly accomplished.
Race Stats: 14,7 km; +754m / -754m
Results:
Winning Time by Grayson Murphy (USA) of 1:15:20
My result - 27th in 1:23:05
Team Result: 10th
http://www.wmrch2019.com.ar/results/wch-seniors-f.pdf