I have now decided that the City 2 Surf’s ‘Heartbreak Hill’ is for wussygirls! After doing the inaugural Bumble Hill Burn today I can attest that this cool new event is all hill, all heartbreak!
A local community event on the Central Coast raising money for the little locality of Yarramalong, the very first Bumble Hill Burn saw about 50 runners take on the road that leads from the bottom of Yarramalong Valley all the way up to the top of the ridge at Kulnurra. This is only a 6.2km run, but the vertical climb of over 337m (according to my Garmin) is what makes it ‘interesting’ to say the least.
For pilots and other aviators, this equates to 1105′.
For for Glee fans this is the equivalent of 184 Jane Lynch’s.
The first bit was a nice little jog through the Yarramalong township for about 800m just to break the pack up, and then it was straight into the climb. Many people chose to do the whole walk/run thing but I was on a mission to see if I could run the whole way up. Funnily enough, there were several people thoughout the race that I found myself duelling with. At the beginning there was a nice blonde lass by the name of Trudy who I think is either a client or a friend of a client of Fitastic Fitness that I was running past when she was walking (only just) but then she would pick up the pace and run and then zoom by me, only to repeat the whole pattern further up the hill until I managed to inch away on one of the flatter bits. Towards the top there was a group of about 6 guys that were walking as well as running, and as I slowly managed to catch them the whole leapfrogging continued.
At the top, there was no more up and the road leveled out for about the last click and a bit. I picked up my pace here and found that my normal stride seemed like I was bounding along on the moon after spending the last half hour doing little babysteps up the hill. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was also running about 30sec/km faster than my normal running pace along this section – even though I did not feel like I was pushing it out at all! This is even more impressive when you consider I did the High Tide Commando Course the day previous.
There was a slight downhill dip up the top before the climb up and over the finish line, and I crossed in 41:53.
Here’s the thing – the lead guy crossed in 23mins, according to my mate Roxxii from The Timing Guys who was handling the timing duties at the top. For me to run along a totally flat 6.2km track in 23 mins would be a big ask! This guy must have awesome power-to-weight ratio working in his favour – something I could certainly use some improvement in either increasing my power or reducing my weight.
My full race profile including speed, elevation and heartrate can be found at http://connect.garmin.com/dashboard?cid=5833525
Oddly enough, it only took about 6 or 7 minutes to get back down the hill. I suppose that’s the benefit of leaving a 29inch mountain bike up at the finish line to hoon back down on at over 60km/h!
So all-in-all, a great little event that I certainly hope returns next year and becomes bigger as time goes on. A big thanks to the SES and other volunteers for keeping the roads free from cars and all the other organisers and sponsors like Star 104.5 and Wyong Shire Council. I do like having a new race bib to add to the collection in the garage!
Now, where can I get an emergency calf rubdown?
