The first race in the Salomon trail running series was this morning: 15km at Studley Park & Yarra Bend Park. I have only done a few races so far this year (a trail run in the USA, Puffing Billy and a Sri Chinmoy 15km run), so entering this series was designed to get me back into more serious training.
This run is a kind introduction to the series: no serious hills (the altitude graph below ranges from about 5m to 35m) and good trails along the Yarra River. The weather was perfect, meaning no rain, mud or deep rivers to avoid, as anyone who ran the Plenty Gorge race last year would remember.
I found myself starting at the back of the race, due to my own stupidity: if you are going to visit the toilet before a race, do it well before the start time so you’re not sitting in the toilet listening to the announcer start the race!
Here’s the map of the course (the blue line with kilometre markings). If you haven’t explored the trails of Yarra Bend Park, it is well worth it: we are lucky to have such good running tracks so close to the heart of Melbourne.
