Trials by Miles doco freeview released

Adventure runner Beau Miles has released his trail running film, Trials by Miles, on You Tube for free viewing. Here he looks back at the adventure he documented…

It was five years ago that I ran, ah, shuffled across the Australian Alps Walking Track. So here I sit, thinking about that wet-dry-dusty-snaky trail in what was seemingly one-long-day, yonks ago.

Setting off from Tharwa ACT at 6:45am on day one and drinking Moet in the Walhalla rotunda 13 days-10 hours later is the longest day I’ve ever felt.

The film splits it up nicely with on screen text, a different shirt (occasionally) and the old sunset-to-sunrise shots. My increasingly swelling right leg, after the first week, put on the weight that the rest of me was losing. It was a compressed experience.

Intense, kilometre-counting, creek counting, sleeping in fits, anxious, excited, overtired. Yet all was fine. A little barked up from all that post bushfire roughage, but ok, and ok means you trot on.


[click on the frame squares bottom right to enlarge screen view]

I travelled slow enough not to fly apart completely, and fast enough to be back at work on time. I’d hate to exaggerate, like we do, because we can, but it was honestly a very doable thing.

Far fitter, stronger shufflers would do it faster, neater, better. But there’s a certain pleasure and ‘whatever’ about doing it as a personal, as well as ornamental ‘first’.

Click away and enjoy my jog across the Australian Alps Walking Track: Trials of Miles.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6TbeiKxpSs

www.beaumilesfilm.com

Mum’s wild run for climate change

A Hobart mum is looking to raise awareness and funds to help preserve our environment for her kids by running 150km through the south west wilderness of Tasmania.

“Everyone who meets Jen Boocock would describe her as passionate and fiery,” reads her media release. “She is passionate about lots of things in the world around her and determined to make it a better world for her family and her children. She is also passionate about running and the beautiful Tasmanian wilderness that she explores on many different adventures, so, she is determined to see this wilderness preserved for her children and future generations to enjoy as much she does.”IMG_6198

To do this Jen and two friends have embarked (they started running on Monday morning) on an adventure to increase awareness about climate change, educate others about how they can make a difference, and raise funds for the Climate Council, an organization already doing amazing work in this area.

The North Face 100 2014By the time you read this, Jen Boocock, Jen Sprent and Stephen Rae will be part way (or maybe all the way)  through a 150km route exploring Tasmania’s rugged wilderness from Scott’s Peak Dam to Cockle Creek.  The trail is designed as a ten-day bush walk, but the three will be running it non-stop and aim to finish it in close to 36 hours.

The three runners  have competed in a number of ultra-marathons, so they are well-prepared for the challenge.

Check on the trio’s progress at the Run For Climate Council Facebook page here.  As this was written, they were safe and about to rest up at Melaleuca.

Jen will be available after the run to talk about the adventure and the work of the Climate Council and is encouraging anyone passionate about climate change and the beautiful environment we live in to donate. Everyone who donates goes in the draw for some great prizes.

Donations can still be made at: https://www.mycause.com.au/page/86994/jen150kmrunforclimatecouncil

 

Run through history

WEB IMG_1756Fact: Aussie Rules Football and the logging industry played pivotal roles in the genesis of trail running. At least, in Victoria they did. And the evidence can be found under the fallen foliage of giant fern trees and towering gums in the mountains nary 80km east of Melbourne.

In history books detailing the early 20th century history of the Upper Yarra Valley, under the chapter ‘Hard Men, Harder Work, Hardest Wilderness’, you’ll find stories of loggers who endured dangerous work felling and milling giant trees – some of the biggest recorded on the planet – in some of the roughest, steepest, leech-infested country imagined. Six days a week they toiled, chopping and sawing timber, loading it onto bush trams that trundled down mountainsides, headed ‘down the line’ on steam trains that had their terminus at the small logging town of Warburton.

Every Saturday, workers would down tools early, grab their footy kit bag and, in order to make the opening siren present and accounted on a forward flank or otherwise, they would run the 10-15 kilometres down into the valley and back into town, just to get a game of footy. There are no records detailing if any ran back the same day having played four quarters, but with a licensed publican in town, it would be fair to bet that most left their return to the working slopes until after Sunday church.

The sawmills among the mountains are now long gone, with scant metal cog remnants being slowly engulfed by rampant ferns and moss. But the legacy of those hardened footballers – arguably some of Australia’s very first trail runners – remains. The tramways on which they shunted huge trees, and the trails that were their highways back to civilisation, today prove excellent singletrack ripe for the pacing.

WEB A Running VTRF (1 of 1)-7Indeed, not only were these trails the Enchanted Forests of my own childhood – I grew up in Warburton – they were also (unknowingly at the time) the genesis of my own trail running affair. So too, strangely, was Aussie Rules. Like the loggers before me I played on the local footy team – the ‘Burras’ in honour of the choir of Kookaburras that would laugh their heads of whenever I got touch of the ball (true story). Unlike the latter day loggers, I did not have to run 10km to take up my place every Saturday (maybe if I did I would have kept my slot as a running ruck rover, short-lived as it was). However, the trails that shoulder the Yarra River through town and climbing up the mountain slopes that envelop it were regular hosts to training run sessions aimed at readying us for the perils of country footy (run fast and nimble or get hit, hard and fast).

No wonder then, as I start trotting out twenty or so years later from the very same oval on which I so perfected the art of ‘invisible man football’ (no one knew I was even on the field), I start to reminisce. The smell of damp fern aromas fills my senses. I am transported back to my youth, but with the rose-coloured perceptions of an adult drunk on eucalypt-tinged nostalgia.

WEB Vic Trail fest (1 of 1)-41I’ve returned not to bathe in the mud and blood-bath memories of my feeble footballing days, rather to recce-run a bunch of trails that, come this November, will again feel the footpadding of runners.  Only this time, they won’t be running to a footy match. They’ll be running for fun. And they won’t be running just 10 kay or so. Rather they will run up to 100km, over three days, in the inaugural Victorian Trail Running Festival (1-3 November).

For event owner, Greg Donovan, the concept was simple and in keeping with his other events such as the Big Red Run: find a beautiful part of the world where there was enough trails to run for three days; set up a camp to encourage an community vibe where celebrating the trail running lifestyle is as core to the experience as trying to dry your muddy sock by the fire will be.

Not far from my first childhood home, the camp paddock he has chosen as base for the event sits aside the Yarra River and in a bowl of towering Eucalypt that step up the mountain on all sides. It is where I will finish my first recce (and the Festival’s Day One) run: a 34km loop with two out and back sections, mostly routed along an old concrete aqueduct, set high above town on the northern valley slope.

WEB A Running VTRF (1 of 1)-3Starting from near the footy oval, the course traces the river before edging up the valleyside through the grounds of what was originally a Sanatarium when it opened in 1912, and was then variously a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, a wellness centre, and a fully-fledged emergency hospital. As a kid, I never met any of the recovering drinkers there but I did have plenty of stitches sewn over cut knees (an early clue to my running co-ordination) in the hospital and I admit to breaking into the indoor basketball court and heated pool as a teenager. If nothing else, Warburton is freezing in winter, so the November timing for the festival is a smart choice.

Above the hospital grounds, runners quickly reach an old aqueduct. Built from 1911-15, it once streamed drinking water from O’Shannessy Dam (after which the aqueduct is named) downtown to Surry Hills. Today, it is covered in moss and dry, a concrete remnant of old-school water transportation (perhaps it was the constant dead wombat carcasses caught in grates and spoiling the water supply that made them finally shut it down, although not until 1997).

WEB IMG_1691

Here, Greg and his Race Director, Adrian Bailey (of Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon fame) runs competitors out east along the mostly flat double track trail that parallels the aqueduct. Although a ‘road’ as such, it remains a wild experience as the track weaves in and out of the mountainside contours. Above are walls of ferns and messmate stands, rising up towards Mts Victoria, Boobyalla and Donna Buang above. The latter is a well-known target for many trail runners and trekkers looking to get some vert training into their legs. A trail darting up from the township rises steeply with a total ascent profile of approximately 1400 metres in 7.5km. Not a worry for those running the Festival’s first day as the course turns around out past East Warburton, heading back above the Warburton township for another out and back to a magnificent lookout just above the township of Millgrove.

On the return leg of the recce run, the night closed in and I was reminded of yet another link Warburton has with my trail running life, this one notched after I had left town and as an adult. The Oxfam Trailwalker also uses this same aqueduct in the latter stages of its Melbourne edition. Running my first (and to date only), I reached the aqueduct stretch above Warburton in the pitch of night, exhausted, hurting, and to be honest, not 100% compos mentis. Checking my mobile phone in the dark while continuing the continuous forward motion thing (lest I collapse), the earth suddenly opened up beneath me. With stars in my head and grazes on all limbs, I came to realizing I had in fact stepped straight off the edge and fallen into the dry aqueduct. Nearly ninety kilometres into the Oxfam, and on my last legs, it was the last thing I needed.

WEBRunning VTRF (1 of 1)-9But now my legs were in full swing, with only 28km in them and my Ay Up headlamp brilliantly lighting up the danger of the aqueduct drop to my left. Instead I dropped down the Donna Buang Trail that the vert-freaks love so much, negotiating the slip-n-slide mud fest, to run back into the centre of Warburton, picking up the brilliant singletrack that weaves alongside the Yarra River, which I follow to the far end of town and the paddock cross river. As a starter day and distance, it’s a sweet introduction to what the Festival is all about: enjoyable running.

Day two of the recce, and of the event, is the Big Day. This is the marathon effort that has runners being transported over the other side of the southern range, via Powelltown (another old logging town, the old mill there still hanging on to existence). The race directors lull you into a false sense of security…

Cover TRM14 medThis article continued in Edition 14, which you can download for FREE now, here

Check out the VICTORIAN TRAIL RUNNING FESTIVAL – three days of awesome running, in beautiful mountain country only an hour outside Melbourne. ENTRIES ARE DUE NOW. It’s three days but achievable distances, and a great introduction to what multi day running – and the great community vibe it engenders – is all about!

 

Hot to Trot on the Heysen: record run

Adventure runner Richard Bowles has completed his latest endurance feat, notching a new record for running the 1200km Heysen Trail, in South Australia.

The Melbourne-based runner set out from Parachilna Gorge in the desert north of the state on 4th May, eventually reaching the trail’s spectacular end at Cape Jervis to complete his record run in 14 days, 8 hours and 32 minutes. If done in one stretch (less than 70 or so have) it is usually walked in 50-60 days.

Richard averaged 85 km a day on what was a  challenging trail with hundreds of mountain climbs and rough, rocky trail underfoot. His record beats the previous by 20 days.

He ran to promote the work of Red Dust Role Models. Red Dust state it is essential to the social development of Indigenous people in remote communities. Its health promotion strategies improve and transform lives and have a sustainable impact on social, economic and environmental conditions.

Donate funds to the cause at

1200kms.gofundraise.com.au

Check out a few images from the run at: www.facebook.com/UltraRunnerRich

Here’s a taste of Rich’s journey along the Heysen Trail in three parts:

Mountain to mall trail run challenge

Two endurance runners are set to run 180km from Baw Baw mountain to Bourke Street Mall, in an attempt to follow a route that stays almost entirely on trail and off road, taking in both wild national and suburban park landscapes.

Beginning on Wednesday 26th February, adventure athletes Richard Bowles and Jarad Kohlar, will leave Mount Baw Baw Alpine Resort – usually a 2.5hour drive away from downtown Melbourne – running part way on the famous Australian Alpine Walking Track before hooking west towards the city, linking up bush and then suburban trails to arrive at Bourke Street two and a half days later.

The Baw Baw to Bourke Street Challenge won’t be the first time the endurance athletes have put their bodies and minds on the line to cover impressive distances.

993688-richard-bowlesRichard Bowles  is known for massive run missions including being the first person to run the length of Australia’s Bicentennial National Trail (5330km), the first to run New Zealand’s Te Araroa Trail (3054km) from top to bottom, and the first to run the Israeli National Trail (1009km).

Jarad Kohlar (below) is one of the nation’s best-known adventure racers. The one time Australian Multisport Champion is used to running in wilderness for days on end as a veteran of the Adventure Racing World Championship and winner of the Mark Webber Challenge.

Jarad 1

The Baw Baw to Bourke Street attempt officially launches this year’s Brooks Trail Run Festival, a three-day event (8-10 March www.trailrunfestival.com.au) that celebrates the ‘trail running lifestyle’ with a range of trail running events from marathon and half marathon to shorter fun run distances.

“In developing the Trail Run Fest, the team at Baw Baw were discussing whether it would be possible to run all the way from the CBD to Baw Baw purely on singletrack,” says Bowles.

“The idea resonated and our aim now is to prove how accessible trails are by running them from country to city.”

The route will track through the Baw Baw and then Yarra Ranges National Park, cutting from the resort village towards the small townships of Powelltown and Warburton. The runners will then follow the Warburton Rail Trail into the outer suburbs, passing through Mt Evelyn, to the northern part of the Dandenong Ranges National Park. After hitting and then following (on parallel pathways) the Eastern Ring Road, the route forges toward the Yarra River following its banks all the way into Federation Square.

The route descends from a high point of 1536 metres to a lowpoint of nearer 20 metres, with a small elevation challenge as the runners hit the Dandenong Ranges midway.

Screenshot 2014-02-19 22.39.45“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” says Kohlar who along with Bowles will run 80km on the first day and then follow up with two 50km days – a distance that in the endurance world doesn’t actually raise that many eyebrows. “The latter stages when we are tired and the trails are flatter will be tough. The Bourke Street finish will be as welcome as the cold beer at (iconic CBD pub) Young & Jacksons.”

Kohlar and Bowles will be supported by a small crew for the run who will manage hydration, nutrition and film the challenge as it transpires. The two runners are expected to reach Bourke Street to complete their mission by lunchtime Friday 28th February.

Richard Bowles www.richardbowles.com.au  // Jarad Kohlar www.jaradkohlar.com

Follow their progress here.