Oh wow that hurt!

Run the Rock, has been around for nine years, with its first running in 2017. It’s part of the event collective responsible for Run Melbourne.

I thought I had run most events in Melbourne at least once, but I had never run Run the Rock.

I can’t even say why, I just hadn’t and I didn’t really know much about it (maybe it didn’t always have a medal.)

It takes place at Hanging Rock, about an hours drive north of Melbourne.

There are multiple race distances that all circumnavigate the infamous rock (if you don’t know why Hanging Rock is famous, that’s a pop culture gap you need to correct), from 5k to 22k.

I also failed to do any research whatsoever on the event before I signed up and arrived at the race start. The only thing I looked at was the start time.

I just assumed it was another road half marathon and I thought I would have a crack at a sub 1:45, since I’ve only done that once and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

I arrived at the start bang on 8:00am for an 8:15 start. Plenty of time I thought. Except the parking was a decent stroll from the registration tent and I may have had to run.

As I pulled up into the parking area, I saw a few flags of the race course out on gravel road and trail. Hmm, not what I was expecting, so instead of putting on my road super shoes, I grabbed my trail one’s from the boot and went with that.

In retrospect, I’m not sure that was the best idea.

The course was probably 50/50 bitumen road to gravel road/fire road/grass/single track. If you look at the map below, the bottom and right hand side of the box is gravel, the top and left is bitumen, the loop at the end is single/double track trail and grass. It’s a mixed bag.

It went out on a loop that the 22k course did twice before looping around the base of Hanging Rock.

And it was not flat. I logged just over 300m of elevation over the 22km.

Having not done my research and having it in my head that I was about to run 1:45, I went out hard and then the course went up.

I just took it in my stride and kept going at the pace I thought I could sustain up the hill.

Almost immediately my heart rate shot up without the pace changing too much. It was going to be a long morning.

The shoe choice probably bit me in the arse as well. If it was wet, Millers Lane would have been a clay slip and slide and I would have had the last laugh, but since it was dry, the trail shoes were not required and I paid for it on the road sections when I felt like I was putting in way more effort than I needed to even wearing the Agravic Speed Ultra 2’s.

Then there was the fuelling whoopsie, see this race really was a comedy of errors.

Whilst not the biggest mistake, I did have my gels all ready to go into one of the little soft flasks which was a game changer at Gold Coast Marathon last year, but since I was rushed when I got to the start, I just shoved them all in my running belt and went with it.

So I didn’t have a rubbish bag (so I ended with a sticky mess of wrappers in my pocket) and on the last road section before the final loop at around 17km, I had to stop and walk to find the last gel in my belt. I was spinning it around, loosing the straps and digging around trying to work out how to get it out. At most a 30 seconds to a minute was lost, but it was a frustration and stress I just didn’t need!

By the time we got to the trail section, I’d lost all gas and my will to live. I was annoyed at myself because if this was a road running crowd this would have been my time to shine. Instead I just huffed and puffed my way around the loop to the finish.

It wasn’t pretty, but it was done.

I actually think this course would suit me and I’ll be back next year for another crack!