This morning, I was back at the reservoir for the Force of Nature Ultra 12km trail race. (The other categories were 64km and 23km.)
By the way, I gotta say the event T-shirt is rather ugly because of the random yellow streaks and circles.
The start line was at Dairy Farm, exact same place as the On The Hills 10k race a month earlier. But unlike that race, it didn't rain this morning.
First flag-off was at 7am.
I started out surprisingly stronger than at the On The Hills 10k race, but would finish much more poorly.
This was where my shoes got muddy:
Taking the Rifle Range Flyover over the BKE:
Right after the sign that says "Stop feeding the monkeys", there was a guy feeding the runners.
Another guy feeding the monkeys, I mean runners:
Nearby, the first and, as I discovered later, the only water point on the 12km route:
Crossing the brook:
I saw a woman running the wrong way and wanted to go after her to tell her, but I wasn't sure if she was part of the race. She later overtook me, so I guess she was part of the race and must have realised she missed the turn. (And she's faster than me.) There seriously needed to be more course marshals.
Damn the uphill climb:
I used to run at MacRitchie on weekday afternoons when there was hardly people, so I was surprised to see so many trail runners (who weren't part of the race), running groups, hikers and students this morning. It got a little squeezy on the narrower parts of the route.
Out of the woods at last:
It was another long kilomtre to the finish line.
Water, bananas, apples and more at the finish line:
Having used to run this route on my own once a week only a couple of years ago, I hadn't expect it to be so hard for me this time.
It appears those days of me running to work are truly over.
EARLIER: On The Hils 10k: The umbrella run
