Throughout the night, the sounds of cicadas and other insects lurking in the coastal forest made way for the calls of tropical birds, like parrots and macaws. It was still dark in the bedroom, but with our window open, we were easily awakened by the birds beyond the screen. Although it was around 5:30am in Hardy’s Bay, it was 10:30am in San Diego and after a long night’s sleep, in an extremely comfortable bed, I found myself walking out the screen door and looking out to see parrots flying from tree to tree above, and sailboats in the bay below.
I slowly got ready and stretched, while Elizabeth slept quietly in the other room. At around 7am, I sent Frank a message, telling him that I thought that 7:30 would be a good time to head down to the race start, even though the race wouldn’t be starting until closer to 9. I wanted to make sure that I got my race bib, stretched, and went to the restroom before the race, and I also thought it would be nice to see how they had everything set up. Elizabeth got up and ready shortly after and the three of us piled into his Toyota sedan.
He drove us up the steep hill that we didn’t want to climb. Just over the top, were cars of the race participants and a guard directing traffic down the hill to the beach. As we drove down the two lane road, we dodged race participants getting out of their cars and heading for the starting line. We talked about the numerous large housed that line the streets and how over 50% of them were empty. He explained that they were mostly second homes that were owned by people who had more money than sense, who only rented out the houses a few weeks out of the year and just left them there during the rest. He said that each of them cost $1-2 Million, which made me think that most coastal homes were probably about the same all over the world.
He dropped us off in a parking lot just before the Killcare Surf Lifesaving Club, where all of the participants were gathered to pick up their bibs. As we passed through the crowd, everyone looked familiar in their running get ups, some wearing trail shoes and camelback water back packs. The expo area was pretty limited compared to some of the half marathons that I have participated in around San Diego. There was a tent set up for the limited race shirts and last years discounted merchandise. Then two tents set up side by side where the race bibs were being handed out and food and smoothies were being prepared.
After I got my bib, we walked out to the beach to see what I was up against. The sand was soft but felt like it had a different texture than Southern California. This sand felt a bit more coarse and looked a little like the sand that you might use for sand blasting, with a more yellowish tint than white. There stood a large, yellow, inflatable starting line, with more than a mile of wide open beach behind it. Going the other way was a small stretch of beach just before the surf club, and then cliffs that were a couple hundred feet high.
Elizabeth and I walked over to the surf club restaurant, where we would get a light bite to eat before the race start. I got myself a pretty modest slice of toast to fill my belly and Elizabeth got a bit more, perhaps some eggs and coffee. Shortly before the race walked over to the shower/restroom building. The women’s line had close to 25 people waiting, while luckily the men’s room only had about 5. Most of the room was taken up by showers, while there were two toilets and one stand up trough that multiple people would stand at once. Once I was ready to run, I stopped back for a moment to talk to Elizabeth before heading over to the race start, when an announcement was made.
There was a lot fewer runners at this race than in the street races that I have run in the past. Instead of have the runners go at different times. We all sort of gather on the beach facing the starting line and filing through the arch to trigger our race chips. The race starts with a run down Putty Beach, up to Gerrin Point, down to the beach at Maitland Bay, and back up to Bouddi and Bombi Point, before heading back around. After having little to no experience in running in sand like this, it was like having cement shoes on. The crowd of runners all struggled as it seemed as though it was a miracle that those that were far ahead, had been so successful.
While I have experience with pacing myself on the road, it was hard to not try to go as hard as I could just to keep up. At first I tried running as close to the water as I could, but since the sand wasn’t packed in, I was merely running through holes that were left by the runners ahead, and putting myself at risk of getting my shoes filled with water. After one fairly close wave, my right shoe was soaked and I looked to my left to see that there were runners moving ahead from the outside where the sand hadn’t been run it yet. I crossed through the pack to the untouched sand and while it wasn’t too much easier to run through, it wasn’t harder.
After the seemingly endless beach run, we were finally going to running on a more solid surface. Unfortunately, the end of the beach ended in a bottle neck, as the course was switching from a wide open playing field to a staircase that was just wide enough that two extreme thin people could walk side to side. The wooden steps wound us around and up the sides of the cliff, where we were eventually placed on a coastal boardwalk and cliff edge trails that were lined with a short fence. The drop below would lead to eminent death, so once again there would be no passing. While it was a comfortable pace, I really wanted to try to run faster, but I couldn’t get passed the person in front of me without potentially getting elbowed over the fence in to shark infested waters.
Some we headed into the forests, where we climbed stairs single file, with the occasional competitor barreling through everyone with no regard for sportsmanship or etiquette. But maybe I would’ve been better served, if I was a jerk. I opted to stay behind the person in front of me, but if I saw someone passing, I would draft them as if we were running together and people would most of the time get out of our way. As we got closer the top the course became stepper, and everyone was walking up. It wasn’t until the half way point that they had snacks and water, and I took full advantage.
There were bowls filled with orange wedges, gummy worms, and potato chips, and I took my time filling up on a little of each. I filled up my water bottle and then continued down the paved one lane road down the hill. The course broken into a trail of mulch and I was able to run down quickly and make up for some lost time that I had spent walking. There was at least two miles where I was able to run as fast as I wanted. And even though there were a few people passing me, the trail was wide enough that you didn’t feel held back.
We began winding back around towards the start and while the trail was difficult to maneuver at this point, I knew that the beach would be even more difficult. As I carefully took each step down, I knew that the faster that I went the higher the potential that I would land on my face. After turning the next corner, there was a woman who’s eye was bleeding and blood was gushing down her face. I would be checking every step at this point, but soon the forest would lead back to the boardwalk and finally the beach.
Words can hardly express the amazing views and the feeling like you are walking on the wild side, while running only a few inches from a 200 foot drop. And then came the beach. It was my last chance to break free and with in seconds I ran too close to the waves and my shoes were complete soaked. With virtually no energy, I knew that if I didn’t keep running, I might as well just fall on the ground and fall asleep. The wet shoes felt like they were glued to the ground, so the only way to free myself was to take off my shoes and run in the sand. The ground was uneven, but it felt good. I put my head down and powered through. When I got close to a wave, I ran into it, because the cold water made my sore feet feel number for a minute.
The surf club seemed like an impossible distance from this perspective, but I knew that it was maybe only a mile, so as long as I concentrated, I would make it. As I got close to where the starting line had been, I thought that the race was over and began walking. Then I saw people turning down a path, where I began running again. There was Elizabeth standing and after giving her a big hug, I turned the corner and ran under the finish line arch. It was such a relief. While I had run 13 miles on a paved road 9 miles on trails and sand is no joke. While my feet maybe didn’t hurt as bad, the whole rest of my body was completely depleted.
Elizabeth said that she would buy me a beer from the bar above the surf club and I took her up on her offer. Before going straight to booze, I walked over to a tent that was making smoothies and ordered a pineapple mint, with protein. It was pretty delicious, but I still felt like I was going to need some more calories if I was going to walk back to the airbnb, so we walked over to the surf club.
I quickly took a shower in the shower room/restroom, next to the surf club. There were a couple of kids running around in there, but I managed to take a quick cold shower, that cooled me right down after the race covered my with sweat. After quick rinse, I joined Elizabeth in front of the building.
We went next door to the surf club. We walked inside and climbed the stair case as we were greeted by the photos of different teams of lifeguards who patrolled Killcare Beach over the years. When we reached the second floor we were entered a little counter area, where you could purchase quick items or be seated. We seated ourselves through the other side of the room onto a partially enclosed patio, at a table that looked out towards the ocean.
We could see that while the race was concluding the lifeguards were setting out the surfboards, jetskies, and flags to begin their patrol. Looking over the menu we saw that there was a larger variety of sandwiches and burgers, but I ordered the fish and chips, while Elizabeth ordered a salad. The fish and chips tasted good as you expected and we sat for a while as my adrenaline level decreased and the pain and exhaustion of the race began to rise to the surface.
We walked back up the hill that we were driven down by Frank before and as I struggled to make it back up, Elizabeth and I talked about how humid the weather was and how there were so many flies landing on us. The environment did remind me of the times that I’ve gone to Florida, where there are lots of bugs flying around and you just have a gross sticky feeling walking around. We made it to the top of the hill and eased our way back down the other side to Frank’s house.
As soon as I got in, I took a hot shower and then went into the bedroom and fell asleep while Elizabeth watched tv in the other room. Eventually she crawled into the bed and fell asleep, then I woke up with the alarm that I set on my phone. I felt a bit more rested after sleeping for a few hours, but now I was dehydrated and hungry, so I woke up Elizabeth and set out to go to the store to pick up some towels in case we want to go to the beach the next day.