I had high hopes for this one.

After Tarawera, I only really added two goals to the list, I wanted to PR at Surf Coast Trail Marathon in June and get the big stein (sub 13:30) at Surf Coast Century 100k in September.

I figured with the Western States qualifier secured for the year, I could have a big swing at SCC and if it turned to shit it didn’t matter.

Problem 1: When you fly too close to the sun, sometimes you get burned

I’d had a decent lead in, not perfect by any stretch, but decent. I’d done quite a few training runs on the course, lots of rhythm running up to around 30k and I’d been adding in lots of random 1% ers like hot baths and plyometrics.

Oh and I’d been nursing the posterior hamstring issue on and off since Christmas last year.

I thought when I had a late night at work the Thursday before the Saturday race and didn’t get to bed until 2am, that I had probably signed the death certificate on a PR.

But I woke up feeling not too bad and when the metaphorical gun went off at the start, I thought maybe the dream wasn’t quite dead after all.

The first few k’s clicked over pretty easily. I was cautious to not go out too fast since I’ve been also training for a road marathon and the open hard packed sand of the beach makes it easy to get a bit too excited.

The insane amount of seaweed in one section slowed me down a bit and I was aware pretty early on that I had over dressed and I would also need to fix my shoe at one point.

I ticked off kilometre after kilometre, Reputation blasting guilt free through my headphones. The wheels were turning. Could this be another rare unicorn day?

I passed through the half way point faster than I ever had before, and I run a lot of these segments in training. Some of the segments had up to 15 attempts on them.

I felt like I was moving well, I knew the course and knew that I could run most of it, rather than slow down and hike.

Other than the stop to fix my shoe and take off my jumper, I moved pretty well.

didn’t really chat to anyone but at one point I had a young Irish lady in front of me talking about medical resourcing and an Indian bloke and an old English bloke behind me discussing the culture and politics of Nepal. What a cool bloody sport this is?

But then I got to the bottom of the stairs at Point Addis and I hit the soft sand dunes. I tried to run, I’d run them in training, but I couldn’t get it right. I felt like I was burning hamstring matches.

Turns out I was, my hamstrings and butt never recovered. They just proceeded to get tighter and tighter and basically refused to climb by 32km.

Problem 2: The math didn’t math, and neither did the stomach

Longer trail races, 42-50k, are a good chance for me to test out all my gear and nutrition.

I try to do it on longer runs too but I tend to take more fun foods like coffee scrolls and biscuits on social outings, not the sort of thing I would whip out during a race.

I’d decided the night before that I would try something a bit different. My watch alarm is still set for every 15 minutes, but for some reason I thought it was 20 minutes.

So my plan was when the watch went off I would have a clif blok, then gel then clif blok and it would be about 41 grams of carbs per hour and I had tail wind in both my bottles as well. Not a massive amount, but it’s similar to what I’ve been training with and way better than the 24g or less I’ve used historically.

Turns out though the alarm was going off every 15 minutes, so with that, it’s more like 66 grams per hour.

Oops!

It wasn’t too much of a problem, until I started adding the tail wind and water.

I came into half way, where I planned on refilling both my bottles, only to realise they were both still basically full.

I remembered hearing on a podcast (yes that should have been an alarm bell!) that increasing your carbs only really works if you increase your hydration, so I panicked and started drinking.

It wasn’t long before I had a giant swollen carb belly.

Luckily I didn’t feel like I was going to poop my pants, but there was a very micro spews in there.

But I kept putting things in as best I could, cutting out the bloks and opting for tail wind, which probably had more carbs per bottle than the bloks were anyway, especially since the stuff from the aid stations was super strong.

I’m so annoyed at this, I know better.

The wheels had well and truly fallen off by the time I hit 30k, but I pushed on, despite the lack of hamstrings and the giant belly I was rocking.

I was absolutely gutted that I wasn’t going to get that PR, I would have had to improve on 4:47 and the course at the end was slightly different and in line with the pre COVID course with the stairs at the end.

There was a slight mini cry on the climb to the light house but I pushed on.

I’ve been on such a run of PR’s post pandemic that I’ve been accustomed to posting that not so humble brag on socials.

But I had to remind myself that you can’t PR every time, that sometimes it’s the luck of the draw (or the condition of the sand) and sometimes it’s just not your day.

I crossed the finish line at the top of the stairs in 4:58, my third fastest (of 6) Surf Coast Trail Marathons.

Not my best performance but I took away so many lessons that it might be one of the best anyway.

And as Zoe Rom says, it’s cool to care.