I quit running no less than 10 times during this race.

To say I was humbled by the mountains is an understatement.

The course of the Peaks and Trails 50k is hard, really hard.

The first 25km covers the four main peaks of the Southern Grampians, up down, up down, giant flight of rocky stairs after flight of rocky stairs. Some so steep I logged a 12 minute k going straight down!

I’ve ran the race three other times to varying success.

I’ve ran it as part of a training camp, as the double day challenge and side my side with my husband.

I’ve never training specifically for it but this year was probably the least specific training I’ve ever done for this race.

I’d been training for a road marathon! This was thousands of stairs!! I should have mentally prepared for the fact that I hadn’t physically prepared, spoiler alert, I did not.

I wasn’t half way up the first hill when I knew it was going to be a really long day. I had started off slow, not pushing the pace, knowing it would be a long day.

I was wearing new shoes that I had tested out on my local trails but nothing technical and no stairs. Turns out they are at least half a size too big. So I kept stopping to adjust them and was getting endlessly frustrated catching my toes and even my heals on the narrow steps.

Don’t get cocky, there are always new mistakes to be made!

I just didn’t have the leg strength, they burned like I was doing thousands of weighed step ups.

I didn’t get a single segment PR on any of the climbing sections, up or down! Some were just a few seconds out, others up to 10 minutes.

I was bleeding time.

Many rocks were considered as the perfect location for a pity party and I spent hours of the race completely alone, perfect conditions for a mid climb melty.

I just kept telling myself to get to the running section, from around 26km, and go hunting.

So that’s what I did.

I was 7 minutes behind my PR when I got to the top of climb 3, Mt Abrupt.

There was no timer at Signal peak but I definitely didn’t gain any time back, I probably added more.

Once I got off Signal Peak and the horrid steep stairs off that mountain, it was go time. This part I had trained.

I put my headphones on and clicked off the k’s. It was good at the start as there was people ahead of me I could pick off but there wasn’t many, I passed a handful of people in the first two k’s then I was alone again.

I felt like I was motoring along. I pictured the crazy videos of Katie Schide at Sierre Zinal from the day before. She’d run Western by training for running, keep running. I’ve trained for running.

It helped that the shoes that were giving me the shits were the fancy new ON ultra pro’s, yep the shoe she’s currently wearing. No I’m not an easily influenced fan girl!

I was disappointed when the road came to an end and I jumped back onto a shitty soft sand fire trail, perfect Surf Coast training I thought, I actually have been training for this.

Then it was a 5k section of single track to loop back to the start.

With no one to chase, I pushed for the sub 7:30. My previous times were 8:20, 7:51 and 7:42.

I kept running, sometimes it wasn’t remotely fast but faster than walking!

I crossed the line in 7:28:12, a 15:10 PR.

I’m proud of this one. I rallied from the depths of a full tantrum, to refocus and use my strengths to claw back time and I maintained that focus for a good three hours to the finish.

It wasn’t anything revolutionary, I just ran just a little bit faster each kilometre and I had enough distance to make up some time.

I also managed to keep my fuelling up. It wasn’t high by any stretch, and I didn’t keep count of the lollies I ate in place of Clif bloks, but I’d be guessing at about 40g per hour. Small wins for me. In a perfect world I would have used more of the tailwind I packed, but it was in the back and taking my pack off to get it was a pest. Note for next time: keep the fuel within reach.

One day I’ll actually do focused training for this race and see what I can do, but it was a massive reminder than strength training and specific training matters.