Tuesday 3 June 2014

Small mountains to help climb bigger ones

The first half of the year is pretty close to its conclusion already, but for me the best of it is still to come. I've been fortunate enough to have an incredibly cool start to my year, involving several wicked races and just some simply mind blowing trails here home in Australia and across the ditch in New Zealand.

With the Bogong to Hotham, Shotover Moonlight Mountain marathon, Baw Baw trail Festival, and the Buffalo Stampede all behind me, I'm looking forward to my most exciting and undoubtedly toughest race yet. My plan for the middle of this year had been to lay low and rest a little from the longer races before building again for the latter part of the year. That was, until I was given the opportunity to race the Mont Blanc 80km with the rest of the Aus/NZ contingent! Talk about excited! 

I had a good rest after a big learning curve at Buffalo, and then it was pretty quickly back to the mountains. I've been doing some bigger training than I ever have previously, which is only fitting giving the monster of a course i'll be playing on around Mont Blanc/Chamonix in a few short weeks... 

A little spill in training a fortnight ago saw me with 8 sutures in my knee, but fortunately enough this only meant 3 days away from running. The location of the wound meant I got the best of a bad bargain, so I am very grateful for that! 

My adventuring on the trails around the Vic Alps has since resumed, with less than 3 weeks left until I'm on that start line in Chamonix... It's coming around exceptionally fast, so i'll continue to put some more vertical in the bag out training, as my excited nervousness grows with every day that passes! 

My 'run' this morning actually saw me scrambling around a trail-less hillside, after I took a wrong spur and bush bashed for 3hrs. Whilst not a huge amount of fun at the time, I'm sitting down happily to a coffee now and can laugh at what was yet another experience I can learn from on the trail to the true mountains...

I'm more excited than I can even begin to express in a blog post.... My departure on the 15th is drawing nearer and everyday my thoughts become more obsessive about the amazing mountain trails that lie in front of me! 

I've also been doing a little Uni work here and there, but the pages seem to be getting filled with pictures of mountains more than revision notes..... 

My next post will likely be from Chamonix if I can pull myself off the mountains, but there are no guarantees of that! 

jusqu'à la prochaine fois!!!