So… There is this little race in Australia, which starts in the beautiful town of Bright, Victoria called the Buffalo Stampede. I had heard about this in my trail journeys and everyone had spoke so highly of it in its inaugural year (I think 2014?) – how tough a race it was, the crazy climbs and hills, the spectacular scenery, the awesome organisation, the brilliant support and volunteers the list went on. I thought I just had to try it out.
On “enlisting” in 2015 I noticed that there were in fact 3 distances available – a 26km, 75km and 42km over the 3 days. Hmmm hang on, I thought to myself, that means in theory, I could do each one with a nights rest in between….! Sure enough, there was a “Grand Slam” option to do all 3 and I jumped at the chance. Fast forward to the actual race, and following a rather over exuberant day 1 (finishing 8th) which went totally against the plan of running conservatively, and the quite frankly brutal ultra on day 2 I found myself unable to even get to the start line on day 3!
I vowed revenge on Mount Buffalo, and registered for the mammoth task again for 2016. This time would be different… The plan (again) was to run conservatively across all 3 races, pace my self accordingly and leave enough in the tank for each day.
The day of the 26km race came, and of course I raced off at the start determined to at least crack the top 10! It was, as expected, another toughie – but I managed to come home in 8th place again – however, this time I knew I had enough left to have a reasonable go at the 77km ultra on day 2. There were also a few more people attempting the Grand Slam and we had chatted along the course and given each other a bit of a boost which definitely helped. 🙂
The ultra on day 2 was again, super brutal. This year was vastly different though – simply knowing what was coming up, how big the climbs were, the difficulty of the return leg and being mentally prepared made a HUGE difference. This time when I arrived at the 2 big last climbs, I was prepared for them, dug in and powered through. I had actually managed to get over the line a clear 1hr faster than last year, but felt I had paced myself almost perfectly and knew I had some left for the last day.
Day 3 was always expected to be a slog – a painful trudge through the first half of the ultra, back over those hills again… I had slept for what felt like 1 hour, and was up at about 4am with restless legs (don’t ask how that’s possible). After a long walk, I managed to loosen up the joints and my legs were moving (relatively) freely again, and I felt pretty confident about finishing the last day (at least i would start it this time). On setting off, it was VERY painful – the legs were so sore after the effort in the ultra, but I told myself the legs would hurt no matter what – even if this was my only race, the legs would be feeling it after the first half – the only difference was the pain was there from the beginning! After 30 minutes or so, it just felt like I was now used to the pain and running suddenly became much easier and I really started to power along the course. Passing a few people felt tremendous, I couldn’t believe I was still able to do that after the previous 2 days and it just spurred me on even more. Getting over Mystic and Clearspot gave me a surge of energy – it was total relief in the form of “thank Christ i don’t have to climb those again”! I literally felt like a rocket going up the big walk to summit Mt Buffalo and I passed quite a few people on this section. Getting to the checkpoint at the top and seeing my family pushed me even more and I even sped up here. The final loop around Chalwell Galleries was a blast, and on the final climb up to the finish, both a wave of relief and also disappointment hit – it was over, and I had done it – but there was a tinge of sadness that it was finished. I think it all got to me and I just sunk to my knees… 🙂
… then of course the realisation of what I had done kicked in…
My wife had rather awesomely remembered my finisher medals from each day, so i got to parade around wearing all 3 and enjoyed my 5 minutes of glory for all it was worth!
