The third in the series of Salomon trail run series was held on August 26. There were two courses, a short 7.3km and a long 14.3km, with both courses starting and finishing at Silvan Reservoir, running the hills of the Dandenong Ranges National Park.
The course was stunning, with a mix of fire trails and single track. The course map gave an indication of the hills we were in for, along with descriptions of hills like “killer hill” and “hill from hell”!
The first half of the course was good, but the climbs at the end were a real workout. Part of the course followed the route of the Oxfam Trailwalker, which brought back some memories: it was nice to run the track again fresh, rather than 50km into a 100km race!
The “killer hill” was described to us at the start as unrunnable, but at least one runner out of the hundreds managed it.
I walked the ascent, but the descent was another challenge, especially as other runners were sliding and falling around me.
Apart from the beautiful trails, the other highlight of the morning was the meat pie at the Mt Evelyn bakery afterwards!