I had this race marked on my schedule for the year, since I missed out in 2017 due to some ankle problems. Having recurring blister issues meant a lot of time off during the two weeks before it, but with four days of rest I thought I was just ready to go, and drove up to Hanging Rock on the morning to register on the day.
- Location: Hanging Rock, Woodend - 90 minutes
- Distance - 13.5 kilometres
- Result: 54:56 @ 4:04/km - 6th of 548
It's a bit of a long drive, but the later start at about 9:30am was reasonable. Even so, it was still freezing cold while waiting for the race to begin at that time.
I had a large blister band-aid on the side of my foot which didn't feel uncomfortable during a quick warm up. Early in the race everything was going well too, I had a rough idea of the many hills on the course so purposely went out a bit slow, probably too slow and a bit outside the top ten.
Once reaching the off road section there was a couple of uphill sections, then one really steep downhill section which I was quite careful with. The scenery seemed good from what I caught of it during the off-road section, but I was too focused on the race most of the time. Having a lot of half marathon runners doing a second lap made the race a bit less lonely too.
At about the six kilometre mark there was the long uphill section which I was well aware of, but just misjudged when it was going to end, however I still managed to move up a couple of positions.
By about ten kilometres I started to feel a bit of soreness on the outside of my foot, but it got even worse soon after and I was lucky to just make it through to the finish without having to slow down.
After the finish I thought I might stay around a check out the place, but my foot was too sore so I just went straight back to the car. Taking off the band-aid also removed the top two layers of skin, which made the pain much worse immediately - I'm not sure if the skin got ripped off due to the band-aid or it was already that damaged.
Besides the injury problems it was a fun race and worth coming back again for a better result.
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