Another day another AfterGlow

My favourite run of the year is the AfterGlow Night Trail run.

2018 was the third year in a row, I’ve dressed up and ran the 21 km from Point Addis to Torquay on the Victorian Surf Coast.

You can read last years race review with all the must knows and course info etc here!

Last year we complained about the horrid humidity, this year it was a bit fresh.

It rained all morning and put a grey cloud over the state Election Day.

Usually AfterGlow falls on a Super Sunday week in my training plans (goal races have been in February the past 3 years) which calls for a long run, an adventure with friends in the 3-4hour or longer basket.

The first year I ran 30k in the morning and struggled through the second half of AfterGlow, a 50k day.

Last year I “learnt my lesson” and only ran 17k in the morning before dancing my way around the course.

This year I went for a lazy 9k with my lab in the rain to shake out the morning cobwebs. I run so often in the mornings now, frequency > volume, that I feel like I’m missing something if I don’t go. Like leaving the house without brushing your teeth, it just doesn’t feel right.

Of course, despite having nothing to do all day, I left it until 5pm to go and vote in the election. It’s about a 40min drive to the start line so when I left at 5:20pm I was a little concerned. We scrambled to get a park and rushed to register.

I quickly through on my tutu and head torch and jumped on the bus with my equally fluro running buddies.

The three of us had planned our outfits weeks ago but up until the day of the race couldn’t decide on a top colour #firstworldproblems Should be all be the same or go as a rainbow in all different colours? We couldn’t decide and it turned out we all wore bright pink.

With our GlimmerGear slap bands and Safety skin, we started on time and headed off onto the trail. There was dancing to Taylor Swift, FaceTiming children at home and girl talk as we made our way up to the Ironbark basin.

I’m sure some people “race” AfterGlow but we aren’t those people!

We took turns smiling and struggling and carried each other for the 21km.

Our headtorches led the way along the beach to Torquay until someone cried “sprint to the finish”.

Now anyone who has run with me knows I don’t sprint to the finish. Mostly because by that time I absolutely hate life and have nothing left to give. But this time, we had taken it pretty casual and I was cooking and ready to go. I powered down the last 200m to cross the line in my worst AfterGlow time ever in 2:53 and change.

The result was without question a contender for worst race photo ever!