Cape Kidnappers Half 2022 / Cheerleading / Work Social Xmas Party
What a day Saturday morning was! Earlier in the week I went into town to buy some mud gaiters on the advice of my old workmate Anthony who said when he'd done the run earlier in the year (it was the 2021 run postponed until early 2022) that it'd been super muddy and a pair of gaiters had really helped with all the mud and stopped it getting into his shoes etc. So I'd gone into Macpac and gotten the cheapest pair they had, $23 bangers. Anthony kindly offered to give me a lift out to the run on Saturday morning, so having carefully prepared all my gear the night before I jumped in the taxi at 6:40am and headed to his place ready to depart for the run. What a strange morning it was, very foggy and overcast. But at least it wasn't raining! When I got to Anthony's house he showed me his gaiters and his had an extra piece, some wire that held them down. Made sense. He said that he had to purchase the wires seperately. Oh dear, I didn't have the wires so my gaiters weren't going to be any use. And it had just been raining solidly for the last 3 days.
When we got out to Cape Kidnappers I looked at everyone else's feet and only a few other people had long socks and gaiters like Anthony, everyone else just had the same that I did, little socks and trail runners. As the race was about to get underway the sky opened up and it started to piss with rain, some loud thunderclaps were heard too. We all huddled under the tents at the starting line while the race director mocked us by saying "I don't know why you're hiding under the tents, there's no shelter out on the course!" Fair point I guess. Anthony went first, he was doing the full 33km run (bugger that) so I waited around by myself for the next 15 minutes, remmebering to have my pre-run snack and my pre-run Gatorade.
Then it was our time to set off! The gun went and we were away. As soon as we turned the corner and entered Cape Kidnappers we hit the mud. So much mud. My memory of the day will just be mud. There were parts of course that weren't muddy, but it was mostly mud, especially on the extra run that the 21 and 33km runners do, which was on a logging truck path. Or basically just a huge mud bath. Every steep hill, of which there are plenty, were just mud piles. Trying to find the way through without slipping over was hard, a saw a few people here and there go over on their ass. Somehow for the entire run I managed to never go fully arse over tit, though I came awful close many times. The conditions made it really really hard to actually run though, it seemed there were few flat bits where it was possilbe to run. I did my best, but yea it was a 3:30hr time for me to finish, pretty damn slow really. And I'd love to say it was made up for by the beautiful views but really it was misty, rainy and just mostly miserable for the first three quarters of the race. Only towards the end did the sun finally break through the clouds and burn off all the fog so we could see ahead of us etc. I was very, very sore when I finished, some of the last hills had really gotten the better of me and I'd just walked up them. In fact I really walked up most of the hills, if I want to do it again next year I'll have to get way better at running up hills and figure out a way to better nagivate/run down hills. I remember once bit where about 4 of us were slowly grabbing at grass as we descended a steep muddy bit and this one running just called out "Coming through" and just ran down the hill like his feet weren't even touching the ground. It was like he was Jesus and he just floated down the descent instead of his feet touching the ground. Truely a sight to see. He was also probably only 60kg which would have helped.
ANWYAY! Eventually the finish line was in sight and there jumping up and down with excitement were Theo and Beth. So it was nice to finish the race with the familiy waiting to see me, really made it all worthwhile. I'm glad I did the run, it was the hardest one I've ever done, but the lead up to it forced me to prepare and to lose a bit of weight, and it was good exercise. Even today, Tuesday, I'm still feeling a bit sore from it so it certainly was a major workout on my muscles!
Saturday afternoon Sarah took Beth to the Elite Cheerleader tryouts, Theo and I hung out at home. I limped around and got in the pool with him for a minute, before we both decided we should go for a bike ride instead so we zoomed off up to the dairy and got an icecream to munch. Saturday night we didn't go much, got curry delivered and I had a couple of well earned beers. Sunday we went to Mitre 10, Beth's Cheerleading was supporting the runners and walkers as they came over the finish line. Theo, Sarah and I just hung out listening the live music, watching Beth do little routines for the people arriving aand hitting each other with a blowup Mitre 10 Hammer. So that was good fun. And from there we went to the NOW Social Club Christmas function at Farndon Hall in Clive. It was a great event, Sharni's food truck was serving up massive plates of food, there was a lollie bar in the hall where you could go and fill up a container with lollies. Which of course the kids did. There was a photo booth. Santa arrived and handed out presents to everyone, Beth got a little art/cut out set, Theo got a big "floor" puzzle where most of the fun is colouring in the puzzle pieces. The kids had real fun with the puzzle, when they got home Beth helepd Theo very carefully colour it in. It looks really good so far, it's nearly finished.
And that was our weekend. I'm still sore from the run, but recovering slowly. The grass out the back is starting to sprout. And now it's 6:45am and it's time to get the kids out of bed and start the day.
Tim