and, we have lift off......Quarry Road, Christmas Eve run

7.00am, 2 hours 21 minutes, Quarry Road, Hornsby - 2 loops
7.00am temperature 29 C

As I left Coolrunning drinks on Friday night after 3 glasses of water at 7.45pm, my ears were ringing with "you'd better run Quarry Road now" from CR Secretary-General Jen_drinks_red_wine. I'd had 3 beers at work and that was enough before a hydration taper.

I arrived early and caught up with Two Pennys, Bennyr, Uncle Dave, O Runner, Luigi, Royworlds, Horrie and Belinda, Bandanna, Professor, Blue Dog & Bernie, Ms Kelly, Plu, Spud, and quite a few others. Looked for Kit but she must have been flying and I missed her.

I took off with Royworlds which was nice and social. Royworlds was moving in a spritely fashion barely labouring and commenting freely on the scenery while I was battling the terrain and hills.
The hills really seemed to be six foot track stuff, and I had not run on a track for over a year. A couple of the hill sections were tough going. The first loop was particularly hot and dry. I was thirsty after a few kms but left the water bottle untouched because each leg was 6.5km, and I wanted a reserve supply of H2O.

Eventually we caught O Runner, and Suzanne Kelly caught us to reach the Quarry Road trail-head together. Royworlds and I took a bit longer to have a drink break. Roy's hip started playing up. On the return leg we ended up chasing the other 2 for a couple of kms. I thought I'd give myself a buffer going up the hills back to the start, and pushed the first major downhill section on the return leg. I flew downhill, kept going, and ran a negative split of about 5 minutes for the return leg. A bit too excited about being back on trails I was.

For the second loop, Uncle Dave, Royworlds, O Runner and Suzanne finished up early, and I ended up by myself out to the Quarry Road end again. On the second lap I started to feel the irrational exuberance of the negative split and I was tiring up the hills. Happily the glutes and hamstrings were both fully recovered from last weekend and firing. Then general conditioning took over, and unlike the first lap, there was little in reserve as the long hills zapped the strength out of the legs. Been a while since I had that sensation.

I enjoyed seeing the other CRs on the out-and-back course. Two Ps looked like he was closing in on the second lap, and I had to dig deep to keep the pace up.

Overall, a very enjoyable morning feeling hot and then tired. The drinks arranged by Spud and Horrie were a life-saver. Got a bit more hill work to do to make the cut-off at six foot track and keep up there with 2Ps.