Point 2 Pinnacle - A Tale of Two Races

[Seafront Plodder]

Sorry for the tardylessness of the following. It took me four days to fully get over the jet lag of this adventure. Day five was the first in which I managed to make it through without a napette in the afternoon. Not good if you have a couple of week’s work backlog to wade through.

Anyway, when the time comes that I finish with this plodding lark, The P2P will undoubtedly be one on which I will look back with a vast dollop of affection. The people, the place, everything about ‘Tassie’ is right on the button.

It was just a throwaway line from MLCM, but it summed things up perfectly. “If I thought that all Tasmania had to offer was the Point to Pinnacle race, I would never have invited you guys down here”. It is just one extraordinary place. Landscapes change with each passing hour in the car, climates more frequently. People were warm and friendly. Imagine your home town c 1978, add today’s technology and that’s Tasmania.

It was back in September that I finally had to make the decision whether to walk rather than tackle the run. Walking was perhaps the easy way out, but this was no ordinary half-marathon. Lining up at the start severely undertrained would be foolish at best, so with a tiny amount of reluctance, I decided the run would not happen unless I trained. After 50 years I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t train – so the walk it was.

Even then training was light, consisting of just one long dog walk on the flat and a mind-numbingly dull evening on the treddy. Still, walking up a mountain is a err…walk in the park right?

We all breakfasted together on the morning of the race, taking it in turns to explode porridge in the microwave and vigorously spread vegamite on warm toast, all the while slurping steaming coffee and making small-talk on how warm the race conditions could be.

Although I had packed a warm change of clothes for the baggage bus, something made me decide to carry a wind jacket, tying the arms around my ample waist just in case…..

And so the appointed hour arrived. Stephen (MLCM Jnr No 2) and I bade farewell to the RC athletes competing in the run, and we were whisked down to the sunny harbour by Mrs MLC for the ludicrous 7am start.

Race #1

Stephen and I dumped our bags in the walkers bus whilst discussing tactics. We had pretty much decided to ‘do our own thing’, each playing down our chances of beating the other.

Tannoy man began counting down the clock, and on the stroke of 7am we were off. We were only a couple of rows from the chip mat, and at the word “GO!” (No gun, how quaint) I was suddenly barged to one side from behind as numerous walkers pushed through. Hardly the recreational stroll the organisers promised, and to be honest I found it quite funny seeing people striding purposefully forward behind the leading police car. We could see The Pinnacle on top of the distant mountain and it was 13.1 miles uphill, so I stuck to my carefully prepared, wafer-thin plan, and let them go.

Stephen and I stayed together for the first few K’s, idly chatting about this and that, his illness which was the cause of him joining me in the walk, remarking on the fine weather, and wouldn’t that potentially be a problem for the runners starting an hour behind?

The route wound through the lower sections of Hobart, and it was after half an hour or so that Stephen pressed on ahead of me. Whether he decided that my pace was too slow or my chat too dull (or both), I’ll never know, but I was happy to let him go. I was really enjoying the morning sunshine and occasional female lycra clad beauty, as well as occasionally stopping to take a picture of our destination Mt Washington summit so far ahead and so high above.

I was passed by the lead runner after about 11K I think on a hairpin bend. He actually had to barge past me and many others to do so. Quite why he wasn’t provided with at least a motor cycle escort was a surprise, but once he has gone, runners came through with increasing regularity.

The route was all tarmac. The further up the mountain we wound the narrower the roads became. That made for an increasingly pronounced camber, and since we were all kept to the left side of the road to allow runners to pass, I began to realise my left leg was constantly hitting the road below my right.

I know I have already whinged on this forum about the blister on the ball of my left foot from inadequate preparation for a long treddy session. Well not only did that flare up again despite Mrs MLCM’s best efforts with a compeed, but my left hip and hamstring started giving me jip too. I really do reckon that was down to the wretched camber, so I was forced to take the middle of the road rather than the race line, playing ‘chicken’ with the motorcycle outriders and adding literally inches to my total distance.

It was shortly after I started to feel sorry for myself that I spied Stephen up ahead. He had pulled to the side of the road and was removing a shoe, ah, classic signs of blister problems. Not being in any position to give any practical help, I glided past unseen. Kids with inadequate trainers eh?

By now I was now well into the second half if this race, and with each ½ of ascent it slowly it began to turn colder. At first it was a blessing to be out of the sun, but the higher we climbed the colder we got until I began to notice the first spots of rain. Again, at first a blessing…

Race #2

By now I was heading towards the last 3K. My left hip/hammy/foot hurt like buggery, it was getting very cold and the rain was slamming against my back. I had wondered sometime earlier if any of the three runners would overtake me to reach the summit first. The odds were not stacked in MLCM’s favour,( he had already won the race by getting to the start line), but the youthful exuberance of MLCM Jnr No 1, or the dogged old dog that is Sweder might, just might glance past.

And so it was, three kilometresish from home Sweder passed me. He was hurting, that much was clear. I shouted something to him but he didn’t hear. He just shuffled off into the distance, around the corner and out of sight.

The last 2 K marker came and went and I had to stop to put on the rain jacket that had seemed such a daft decision to carry at the start. Fumbling with icy cold fingers I managed to zip it up, and I was just able to hide my frozen hands inside. Head down, I began the long limp to the finish.

By now sleet had begun to fall. The wind had whipped up a treat but thankfully that was in our backs. I began to feel for the fellow runners/walkers who had to finish the race in t shirts, as well as for MLCM, Jnr 1 and Jnr 2, all of whom I knew were behind me somewhere.

By the time I crossed the chip mat at the finish it was un-manned (or un-personed). I assumed that if there had been an official, he or she had had the good sense to seek shelter from the blizzard. There were no finish signs - no clock, just a chip mat and the start of the funnel into the horseshoe shaped observation tower. I shuffled in, had only enough time to grab a medal and certificate and bag of sweets before being forced to shuffle out again to make room for fellow finishers. Locating the correct baggage bus I spent the best part of the next 20 minutes thawing out and donning warm clothes and hat.

So the five of us were counted out, and eventually we were all counted back. Later that day when the ale flowed, tales were told in the excellent New Sydney Hotel of our individual experiences. A warm meal and an unexpected blues/jazz band rounded things off perfectly.