A Vintage Victory

It has been a while since I have written a blog post. The last year has been a blur of moving home to Australia, doing renovations on our house and trying to settle back into a life we left almost 12 years ago. One of the exciting parts of moving home for me (apart from being closer to the family), was getting to explore the trails in my own backyard. With that in mind I chose a multi stage run for my partner in crime and I in Alice Springs along the iconic Larapinta trail. (As usual I signed David up for the race and waited for him to get a surprise when the registration email hit his inbox) The Larapinta trail runs for 223kms in total and goes from Alice Springs to Mt Sonder.

The stage race I selected was a four-day event and three of those days are spent on the Larapinta trail. The long course is a total of 133kms and the short course is 85kms. I hadn’t been to Alice Springs or the Red Center before, so my running buddy and I decided to add on a few days at the end of the run to explore Kings Canyon, Uluru and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). Once the shock of receiving the race registration had worn off he was onboard with my plan.

We arrived in Alice a day before the race started and had an enjoyable afternoon wandering around the botanical gardens and spotting Rock wallabies. All was going well until the next day when I picked up my race Bib. Now, I have recently turned 52 and while I acknowledge I am no longer a spring chicken, I don’t think of myself as old. However, my race bib said otherwise. Under my name, in big letters…big enough I didn’t need my glasses to read it… was my age category, VINTAGE.

I handed the bib back to the girl immediately and said there had been a mistake; I couldn’t possibly be in the VINTAGE category. She gave me a “oh you poor thing” smile and said there had been no mistake, explaining runners over 50 and under 60 are vintage.

I quickly pushed the bib in my bag and hid it from the prying eyes of the young men and woman around me. Once the shock had worn off, I realized that the category name I was racing in wasn’t really important, what mattered was that I was here and that I was going to have fun on this beautiful course. However, that didn’t stop me trying to turn under the part of the bib that said VINTAGE as I pinned it to my shirt. Without success I might add, the damn VINTAGE part kept popping back out until I had to give up. Resigned to my fate, I headed to the start line on Friday evening at 5pm with my bib attached and VINTAGE blaring out to anyone that cared to glance in my direction. The young people that gathered at the start line near me (and they seemed really young), looked at me with sympathy when they realized my immense age. A few patted me on the back as if to say “great work for being out here running and not at home knitting”.  Others very subtly moved in front of me at the start line, as they were obviously worried that being behind me might slow them down.

The first leg was 20kms at sunset around Alice Springs. It was a lovely undulating course that was very runnable and an enjoyable start to the four days. I managed not to disgrace myself by needing wheelchair assistance and finished in front of quite a few other runners in the long course.

The next day was the toughest of the run. It was 42kms of rocky, technical trail with two hard climbs. The weather was also hotter than expected, reaching 31 degrees, which felt more like 40 in the desert. After living in Hong Kong for so long and running hills every day, I didn’t find this day as tough as expected and finished in a reasonable time for an old girl.

The third day was a bit easier and supposed to be 31kms. However, I missed one of the course markers while having a lovely chat to a new friend. We ended up doing an extra 2Kms along a dry river bed before we realized there were no other runners around us and we may be lost! Some would say (and did) that dodgy eyesight could have contributed to me missing the marker, I prefer to think it was the engrossing conversation I was having.

By day four I was excited for it to be the last day. The long course runners gathered together at 5am and were bussed out to Mt Sonder. At 6am, in the dark and freezing cold, we started the day with a 7km run up a mountain in 60km winds. It was blowing so hard, I was almost knocked off my feet and had to struggle to move forward. Add to that the 1-degree temperatures and I seriously told myself that maybe staying at home and knitting wasn’t such a bad option.

As we got to the summit of Mt Sonder the sun came up and I thought about stopping and enjoying the beautiful sunrise. That thought lasted about 2 seconds until another icy blast hit me. Instead I passed the checkpoint, put my head down, and concentrated on getting off the mountain, out of the wind and cold as quickly as my VINTAGE body would allow. The rest of the run was lovely and undulating.  After 46 kilometers I crossed the finish line into the waiting arms of my wonderful husband.

Despite getting lost and adding some extra kilometres over the 4 days, I managed to win my age group and come 10^thwoman overall. The advantage of being in the VINTAGE group is that not as many people at such an advanced age enter these races so it is getting easier to place in my category. Running at home in Australia was a fabulous experience. The Larapinta trail run was a well-organized event. The course was great, as was the food and accommodation along the way. The scenery on the trail was stunning. It was harsh, barren and dry, but that only leant to its majesty. We ran on deep red earth under a vivid blue sky and scrambled over rocks in dry riverbeds that were lined with towering ghost gums. I soaked up the magic of the area and tried to imagine the challenges the local people must have faced to survive out here. My only disappointment was that I was so busy looking at my feet to avoid falling over that I couldn’t enjoy the view as much as I would have liked.

I have recovered from being labeled a VINTAGE runner and embraced the fact that at 52 I am so lucky to be still running and enjoying these fabulous events. I have no desire to slow down yet, no matter what age category I am put in.