Nasty weather and even nastier seas greeted the morning as I headed up to attempt a 32km run/walk along Stockton Beach as part of the Big Beach Challenge. Sadly, the event was called off for safety reasons (full marks to race organisers H Events for erring on the side of caution there), so instead of getting on a bus and heading up to Birubi for a one-way trek back to Stockton a couple of the other wannabe participants just went for a nice easy beach run up towards the Sygna shipwreck. Admittedly, I could only keep up with these guys for 2km, and as my plan for the Big Beach Challenge was to do repeats of 4km run / 1km walk sets, I told the guys that I would treat our little run as a training event and just run 4km and walk the last 1km before turning back and repeating. They said they would continue on to see the Sygna up close about 8km up the beach, so I just pulled back and plodded along as they zoomed off into the distance.
They arrived back not long after I did, so we adjourned to Lexie’s on the Beach and had coffee and breakfasts and swapped stories about triathlons and trail runs and adventure races and the like – three total strangers brought together by a common interest in punishing ourselves!
So the actual Big Beach Challenge will most likely be rescheduled – quite possibly to the 24th September. That gives me an extra couple of weeks worth of training, and hopefully if and when I do head up again to do it the Weather Gods will be a bit more considerate. I might even wear one of my Camelbak hydration thingies rather than just relying on a water bottle belt.
I had booked in a massage with a local Central Coast personal trainer and massage therapist by the name of Lisa thinking I would be all shredded after running and walking all the way along Stockton Beach, but even though I don’t actually feel too bad after this morning’s training run I think I’ll still head up on Monday and ask her just to massage my scalp for an hour. I am curious to see if I could ever get bored of having this done, as most hairdressers only ever do the conditioner cycle for a couple of minutes.
Hey, at least it’s not like I’m going to Sweets Central Coast escorts!
