For those who like to plan a holiday around a running event, here is one for your diaries.It would make a grea club trip..
The Great Ocean Road festival is a very popular event especially with overseas entrants, with the different distances selling out months in advance. The event runs on the iconic Great Ocean Road that is closed from Lorne to Apollo Bay for the majority of the day. The event hosts a marathon (45 km), half marathon, 14 km and 2 trail runs. Matt and I decided that a trail run sounded scenic … and all the other events had sold out so we set off at 8.10 on the 12 km event.
After 2 km we were directed from the Great Ocean Road towards a narrow track where my lack of trail running ability had me spat out the back of the pack very quickly. We then ran up for what seemed like an eternity. Reviewing the results on Strava, there was one KM section with a 12% average gradient that saw most competitors walking at the top.
Anyway, for those of you who run hundreds of miles on trails, I won’t go on as it was only 12 km but I will say my poor quads have been sore since the 8km mark of the race – something that has never happened to me before and they still see me groaning when I tackle the stairs. Where we live in Melbourne is totally flat and my lack of hill training was certainly very evident!
Anyway, I would highly recommend the event as it was lovely scenery and really well organised. We plan to do it again next year, but next time I’m going to book early to secure something that goes on the road!
As for the results:
Matt Clements – 1:01:51
Pru Clements – 1:06:59
Winning times:
David Bailey 48:16
Florencia Pirotti 1:00:17