Sunday was a day of firsts.

First:

• adventure race;
• team event with Mr Shallot;
• instance of my legs not moving when my mind tells them to;
• time I’ve had difficulty breathing and getting oxygen into my lungs.

I was excited about doing our first adventure race. This particular event was 11km and involved a couple of beach runs, a rock scramble for about 400m up a creek bed, a massive hill run (elevation of 475m), down to a reservoir for a 10m cooling off swim with the rest of the event being a trail run.

As anyone that knows Mr Shallot can attest, he’s pretty competitive. Not necessarily with everyone else but with himself and I had some reservations about how this was going to affect me. I’m more interested in having a good time and finishing the event comfortably. The only exception is when I’m super fit and have a time goal. This event didn’t warrant the exception!

We started well enough and I slowed down a little over the rock climbing (not my forte). Mr Shallot encouraged me up some really steep parts and I have scabs on my knees (for the team) as the rocks were quite slippery and so were my shoes.

After about 400m, the rock climb ended and we were now on the next trail run to the first summit. There was a woman in front of us and we wanted to pass her. My mind wanted to, Mr Shallot wanted to, me legs said “I’m not so sure”. I couldn’t believe so early in an event that I had to dig deep to pass her. Pass her we did.

At this point, I was having difficulty getting enough oxygen in to keep my body moving. My ears were popping and I couldn’t hear properly. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time as the hill itself has three summits and each time I reached the top of one (which I really should have been able to run up), I looked up to see there was still further to go. Mr Shallot was unaffected and pushed me to keep moving.

Finally we reached the true summit and started the downhill towards the reservoir. The momentum meant that I could move my legs a little faster and we were able to pass a few people on the way. We reached the cooling off point, had a dip and started the next part. It took about 300m before I found my legs and could breathe normally again. I was using all manner of mind tricks to get myself moving.

With most of the rest of the event downhill, it was a bit easier but I never fully recovered from not being able to breathe properly earlier. It meant that at some points I couldn’t feel my legs properly. Not in the exhausted way when you’ve pushed yourself really hard, more in the way of being a little on the scary side.

Mr Shallot has always been an advocate of the sprint finish no matter how exhausted he is and I have adopted the same approach (very interesting when running longer events so this should have been easy!). We rounded the corner and still my legs were somewhere on the rock climb. I have never ended an event so slowly.

It was great to see our puppy at the end waiting with one of her best friends at a pub with our neighbour. They cheered us in and that helped a bit. Mr Shallot quickly consumed his free Fosters while I had some water.

Mr Shallot was very disappointed. He had never ended an event that badly. Me, I’m more use to being at the tail-end of the pack while he tends to be in the top third at the worst.

Some have suggested that my difficulties may have been a result of the pollution as it can take a while to acclimatise. This is possible as the event started at 9am and I tend to train at about 7am. The humidity was low that day so I can’t put it down to that.

What I have learnt from this event:

• Mr Shallot and I have team potential if I can sort out this breathing problem;
• I have to practice more rock climbing, hill and trail runs;
• trail running shoes and possibly gloves would be useful if I’m to do a more ‘hardcore’ course;
• I will keep a log of my exercise in relation to the humidity and pollution levels of the day.

As the Brooks motto says “Run Happy”!

*Thanks to Dave Graney ‘n’ the Coral Snakes for the title to this post.