Moonshine is an offroad half marathon in Upper Hutt. As it started at 10am, and daylight savings had finished the night prior to the event, I drove down from Palmerston North on the morning of the run, arriving with around 45 minutes to spare. As I got out of the car, I realised this had perhaps een a mistake: I had played my first 90 minutes of football in six months the day before hand, and the two hour drive had given my muscles adequate time to stiffen nicely, just in time for the start. I grabbed my race pack (a magazine and three small pieces of cheese, the first time a race official has ever apologised to me about the race pack!), and after a quick warm up to loosen my legs, took my place on the start line.
The first 9km or so of the race are along the Hutt River Trail, largely a long strip of four wheel drive track along the Hutt River. Having spent most of the past few months running mainly on single track, technical trails (and my previous long run being half down a rocky river bed!) I wasn't quite prepared for this, but in the small field, set off determined to try and stay in touch with the top ten for as long as I could, in the hope that on getting to the technical, hilly section, some would tire and let me past. As such, I was probably pushing at a speed and effort I wasn't quite accustomed to.
After heading upstream, and then across the river at Harcourt Park, the race headed along a few bush tracks, over a small swing bridge, then up a small stream valley to the Birchville Dam on the Cannon Point Walkway. Passing the dam, a steep uphill for around 10-15 minute followed. Despite the good quality of the track, and the amount of hill running I had been doing, I found the gradient tough going: fortunately, as I ground to walking pace, I noted those in front of me had as well, and noone was catching me so I figured those close behind me weren't catching up much time either. At the top of the climb, a few kilometres of undulating 4WD track, some sharp climbs followed by sweet downhills, and I found myself trading places with the top woman at the time continually, before she managed to get away from me at the water stop at Cannon Point trig.
Following the trig was my personal favourite stretch, the Cannon Point zig-zag, 1.69km of switchbacks down all the elevation gain: I flew down here, passing several other runners on the way, and would estimate I was about 10th with about 6km to go. Unfortunately the last 6km were back along the flat river trail, and this is where I realised my legs had very little left: whether it was insufficient time to recover properly post-Tarawera, the 90 minutes of football the day before, or something else, all I could do was jog in the last stretch as six or seven people went past. In the end I finished 22mins back in an hour 53, 17th place, given the shortness of the race compared to what I've been training for a result I'm reasonably happy with.
Of course, the fun and games didn't stop at the finish line though: as I finished I became aware of a man lying on the ground, with defibrillator pads attached: an 81 year old walker had had a cardiac arrest. Fortunately, given my condition, the paramedics and other competitors had administered CPR and one shock via difbrillator, shocking him back into a more regular rhythm, and he was carted off to hospital soon after.
My next event is in a month, another trail event mostly on 4WD tracks, this time the 42 traverse marathon. I don't really have any firm goals, though I'm aware it will likely be much slower than my best marathon time. My training in the meantime will most likely be relatively low intensity, though with some long runs mixed in at the weekends. Of course with work and family mixed in, nothing is going to be straight forwards in terms of training, but I'll see how things go.
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