Why Does This Feel Familiar?...

It's one week after the 2008 Kokoda Challenge and once again I'm back to running short distances due to injury. Although the injury has changed this time... my knees both pulled up ok after Kokoda (yay!), but I'm having trouble with my left hip now.

I've not done any running all week - was only able to walk properly after about Wednesday due to the same issue - and managed to get out about a kilometre this afternoon before I started noticing the pain gently kick back in. I kept going for about another kilometre, but once the pain started to increase past the point of "slight niggle" I dropped back to a run/jog combination for the rest of the way home.

Ahh, well... back to the tennis ball/pressure point massage for another day or two; Bridge to Brisbane's on in 6 weeks, and I'd like to do a race for once that doesn't involve painkillers ;-)

Kokoda Challenge 2008

Section 1: Mudgeeraba to Hardy's Rd (Distance: 3km, Total: 3km)
Nothing ever happens in this section! Due to the number of competitors this year, a staggered start was introduced so that the 1000+ people could all start without treading on top of each other (plus it hopefully allows for the faster teams -those aiming for under 20 hours - to start before all the teams who are planning on walking). We started off a a shuffle dictated by the crowd speed, but found a little breathing space about one kilometre in. Checkpoint 1 proved to be the bottleneck I'd expected from last year as everyone tried to swipe their RFID tags on the way through.



My race plan had estimated this section as taking 42 minutes (which was based on last years performance). We checked in at 7:38, and with an adjusted start time of 7:04 gave us a time of 34 minutes, putting us marginally ahead of schedule. Feeling at this checkpoint? Upbeat.

Section 2: Hardy's Rd to Mt Nimmel Lodge (Distance: 9.5km, Total: 12.5km)
Almost immediately after turning onto the Hinterland Leisure Trail we find ourselves stuck in a single-file queue with hundreds of other people. For the most part the line moves at a reasonable but comfortable pace, but every so often we find ourselves stopped behind people navigating creek crossings and muddy patches caused by recent rain.

It's not until the first decent uphill (not one of the "big four", but the most significant of the course so far) that teams begin to space out. Many teams made it to the top of this hill and stopped either for a break or to remove warmer clothing layers, however we continued straight on along the ridgeline making up a few places and saving a few minutes in the process.

This year the course changed a little through this section, although not being too clear on where we walked either last year or this year, I don't quite know how! Both had private property sections in this area, however I feel that this year's course was a little easier (or perhaps I was more prepared for it second time around?). At any rate, we still ended up at a clearing a few kilometres out from the Mt Nimmel Lodge checkpoint with a great view over the Gold Coast (not as good as some later sections, but it's all sparkly and pretty this time of the morning).

We sent off a message to our Support Crew indicating that we were about 20 minutes out from the first of the five major checkpoints, and actually rocked up on time 20 minutes later. The schedule had us arriving here at 9:39, and we checked in a few minutes ahead of schedule at 9:35. Again, at this checkpoint, everyone was fairly upbeat despite taping up a few toes etc to try and ward off any blisters later in the day.

Section 3: Mt Nimmel Lodge to Austinville Rd to Mt Nimmel Rd (Distance: ~16km, Total: 28.5km)
After checking out of CP2 we wandered along a short trail and up onto Tallowwood Rd (is it my imagination or was this part easier than last year?) before wandering along the dirt road for around 3km and turning off into another forest/reserve.

Almost immediately we were presented with the first of the "big" hills. In practice this had taken us around 15 minutes to get to the top, and it was much the same again today, the only difference being the broad sunlight and other teams. We all end up finding our own way up these hills: Brock and Shane appearing to be more comfortable with the incline, Wayne a little behind, and me bringing up the rear (and trying not to look like the weak link in the team! Sweat? What sweat?).


After waving the guys on once I'd reached the top we followed the ridgeline for a few kilometres before taking a sharp right and heading down towards Austinville Rd. I don't remember why I've been so freaked out over this descent for the last 12 months - it's really not all that bad - but perhaps seeing as it the ground wasn't bone dry it was less slippery dust than last year. Or I've just built it up to being scary in my own mind :-) We then kept ourselves amused as we followed Austinville Rd south by ridiculing the worst bitumen job I've seen (missing tar... loose stones...).

Last year the climb from Austinville Rd up to the top of Fairview Mountain was after checkpoint 3, however at the briefing night they told us that the checkpoint had been moved to the top of the hill due to problems with the RFID tags and signals. We decided that it was too early to break for lunch at 11:35, so continued up the hill without stopping for a break.

Around half an hour and a few false peaks later we found ourselves at the top of the second of the four big hills, but couldn't see the checkpoint. Thinking that perhaps it was just around a corner somewhere (as the top of the hill is always busy with resting teams) we continued on, decided to stop for a decent break for lunch when we got to the checkpoint. However, we kept walking and walking after about 30 minutes figured that the checkpoint was probably at the end of the ridgeline (and away from the trees). It was. Finally, after walking for an hour after climbing the hill we saw the checkpoint and the high end of Mt Nimmel Rd, checking in at 12:51.

We stopped for a short lunch break, and tried to work out how much further it was until we reached Polly's Kitchen (the next major checkpoint) as we were around 1 hour ahead of our expected schedule and we would need to warn our Support Crew to arrive early if we continued as such. Lunch revived our spirits after the long walk along the ridge, and while the guys enjoyed hanging out in the shade, I much preferred to sit on the grass in the sun (nothing personal, it's just warmer there).

Section 4: Mt Nimmel Rd to Hinze Dam (Distance: ~5km, Total: 33.5km)
After checking out of CP3, the next few kilometres was along the gently downward sloping Mt Nimmel Rd, which boasts excellent views of the Gold Coast. As was the case last year, teams could be found walking all over the road (luckily it's not busy, although calls of "car!" could be heard occasionally).

The bitumen road didn't prove to be an issue for anyone, but after turning off onto the dirt trails about halfway to the next checkpoint we took the hills a little more slowly because of the dry, powdery surface. After being waved across the main road by one of the SES volunteers, we ignored the arrow pointing to the top of a tree ("perhaps it's one of those hidden checkpoints!") and continued along the trail which winds its way around a few corners and up to the checkpoint four.

At this point we were still ahead of time (checking in at 2:32), and despite a little fatigue beginning to kick in, generally still in good spirits.

Section 5: Hinze Dam to Polly's Kitchen (Distance: 3km, Total: 36.5km)
We didn't stop long at the Hinze Dam checkpoint, instead heading down from the ridgeline at a cruisy pace (with me pointing out the site of the infamous hiking pole javelin throw incident from last year along the way).

Our plan of sending the support crew a message 20 minutes out from Polly's was thwarted by a phone call from said support crew who wanted to know why we hadn't sent a message (we were in the process of typing it up.... impatient!). We did attempt to convince them that we were all out of breath, however I think the concurrent laughing gave that game away fairly early on.

A few minutes later we found ourselves at a creek crossing, along with several other teams. We hadn't encountered a bottleneck for a while, so it was a good chance to catch up with some other teams and find out how they were travelling.

Due to the recent rain, the creek levels were up and most people were queueing to walk across a log to the other side. I know from practice sessions that I have a lack of balance / co-ordination during such tasks, so elected to instead take my shoes and socks off and venture through straight through the creek. Seeing me make quick progress across the creek, the guys wandered over but decided that there looked like enough risk of missing a clump of grass on the far side and getting wet that they'd go back to the line. Well, almost. Wayne attempted a jump and made it mostly cleanly (a little splashing). Shane chose to go back to the line for the log.

Once we'd all made it across we power walked through the "field" (I think it's actually some kind of farm...) until we made it to the causeway and it's ankle height water. Once again I pulled off my shoes and wandered across (the cold water is actually quite refreshing after walking thirty-something kilometres), not bothering to do my laces back up for the short stroll into checkpoint 5.

We checked in at 3:14 - around half an hour ahead of our expected time - and after walking straight past the support crew to get to the RFID swipy-thing, had to find them on the way back. Having not been in place too long, the support crew went to fetch coffee and food from the sausage sizzle while we found our lights/warmer clothing. We also found time to drool over the table of the next car over with it's donuts and cake (not that we really wanted to eat any of it, but it was very impressive looking, as was the microwave hooked up to a generator in their boot).

Section 6: Polly's Kitchen to Environmental Centre (Distance: 7km, Total: 43.5km)
We ended up staying at Polly's long enough to completely eat up our "bonus" time, and ended up leaving back on schedule around 4pm. Each time we'd practiced this section we'd used the bridge (which is part of the road) to get across the creek, however, like last year, we had to cross the creek under the bridge. Like all the other creeks we'd encountered during the day the water level was up due to the recent rain, and we had to navigate across a series of stones and logs.

I briefly contemplated taking off my trail shoes and putting on the shoes I'd brought with me for section 7, however couldn't be bothered to do so seeing as I'd only just changed my shoes. After all, how hard can it be to cross a creek? Everyone else seemed to be able to do it.

Not long after I'd stepped out onto the log behind the guys I had to step off onto a rock. This is pretty much where I came all undone. However, some nice person from the team behind us helped me across onto the next rock, and from there all the hops were smaller and provided less change of me ending up in deep water.

Once across to the other side (yay - dry shoes!) we still had to cross under the road through a storm drain and climb up an embankment. All in all it took us about 5 minutes to do what ordinarily takes 30 seconds on the road. Kind of sums up the whole course, really :-)

We then found ourselves at the foot of Polly's Hill. I'm not actually sure what it's real name is, but it's commonly known in the Kokoda Challenge circles as Polly's Hill because it's one of the "big four", and it's right by the Polly's Kitchen checkpoint. We've taken anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes to get up this hill previously, and despite having already walked over 35 kilometres, we managed to plod our way to the top in about 45 minutes. Not a bad effort :-) After stopping for a quick break at the top (long enough to grab some food, but not too long as it's surprisingly easy to cool down quickly at the top of this hill). We then headed on down towards the Environmental Centre, splitting as per usual into two groups: Brock and I walk-jogging down sections, and Shane and Wayne taking it a little more carefully. I'd put one of my compression bandages on my right knee prior to this, and the extra support seemed to help (although with just one bandage on my left knee felt a little "left out").

By the time we reached the creek at the bottom it was dark, but we all successfully navigated the rocks to get to the other side, and continued on our way discussing what we'd like the support crew to do for food (lamb roast and potatoes seemed popular, although we doubted that we'd want to eat it should it materialise).

There was a little more sludge on the final kilometre leading into the Environmental Centre, but we all got there with minimal issues (except for the one point where I thought I'd seen a tree that looked like Where's Wally). The checkpoint was in the hall (and was heated) so we stopped for a short food/shoe change break. We arrived and left pretty much still on time (around 6pm), but fatigue was beginning to kick in a little at this point and we were beginning to take more time at the checkpoints for simple tasks.

Section 7: Environmental Centre to Numinbah Hall (Distance: 7.2km, Total: 50.7km)
I'd switched shoes at the Enviro Centre checkpoint in anticipation of the eight creek crossings in this section. While it is possible to cross these without getting wet feet (obviously the lower the water height, the easier it is), I generally end up slipping from at least one of the rocks and getting at least one wet foot. During our last practice of this loop two weeks earlier I'd decided it was easier and faster to get to the other side by just walking through the creek - it's also useful for washing mud off shoes - and not wanting to spend the entire second half of the Challenge walking in wet shoes I'd brought a few spares along.

As we left the checkpoint we were followed out by a team with an mp3 player and were entertained by such musical items as "Eye of the Tiger" and the Rocky theme song (Nicey would have been proud of the selection). We found ourselves walking with this team and a few others up until the first creek. At this point, everyone lined up to go across the stepping stones to the other side. Well, all except me. I waded on through, much to the surprise of a few other teams, and once on the other side decided the queue of people (well, headlights actually) made an interesting picture, so pulled out my camera, called out "Heads up!" and received a few mutters for the camera flash.

Once the guys had made it over the creek we found that the trail hadn't dried out properly from the recent rain, and were once again walking around in mud, although not as much as two weeks earlier when we'd been here on the day it rained.

Somewhere after the creeks and before the hill (major undulation?) which is around two-thirds of the way through this section I hit wall. It was dark, I was walking in mud (still!) and I wanted to sit down. And given that it was all muddy, that wasn't a feasible plan. We did stop for a few minutes at the base of the hill to stretch, but this isn't really helpful to flagging spirits, just a reminder to protesting muscles that it is indeed ok to carry on (and that you don't really hate them). This hill, despite not being all that huge in the grand scheme of things, is an annoying feature because it's just steep enough to kill any happy thoughts you may have been holding onto at the bottom. To be fair, it's not as draining if it's not dark and not muddy - neither of which was helpful to me at this point. The only thing I found helping me propel myself up the hill was the fact that there was another team behind us and I prefer people to have to work harder if they want to get past. Hmm... only a little stubborn!

Once at the top of the hill there are about another 30 minutes of undulations, primarily downhill, leading into the checkpoint. This is the section which also corresponds with part of the new Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk (of which I've only done the "other" end - the Border Track out towards Binna Burra). Again, we take these at a slower pace so as not to kill anyone's knees any earlier than we have to, and to avoid sliding on any muddy patches (which only become larger due to the number of people walking on the day).

Eventually we saw lights, and drag ourselves into the Numinbah Hall checkpoint (after being ushered across the road by the nice SES people who saw us coming and kept the traffic waiting a little longer). As promised, Matt met us in the Hall (because there was no way we were going to be able to find our own way to the support car amongst the other hundred or so vehicles). I decided that I'd rather schedule my bathroom stop on the way to the car (as we walked past the building) so the guys all wandered off, and Matt indicated that he'd come back to find me once they'd made it to the car (which he did). Apparently in the extra few (ten?) minutes there was some kind of commotion about a smelly soup (not mine). The support crew had managed to find us Hungry Jacks, however I lost my appetite somewhere along the last section and managed about a bit of a burger and a mouthful of noodles. There may have also been coffee. I was fairly disorientated at this checkpoint, and managed to lose focus of what I was doing multiple times, getting sidetracked from eating to drinking to changing shoes to repacking food in my bag to refilling water, and then realising I still hadn't eaten anything (and so on).

In the end we were here for nearly 45 minutes and I don't remember doing much. I do remember that it was freezing. At this point I was not happy about keeping going, but having made it to the end last year was not prepared to stop halfway.

Section 8: Numinbah Hall to Environmental Centre (Distance: 5.8km, Total: 56.5km)
We checked out of CP8 at about 8:45pm and headed back across the road to complete the second half of the "loop". While the walk itself isn't too taxing in this section (there's a long uphill at one point and a rough downhill not far from the end) it's a mental struggle because we essentially find ourselves walking back to where we came from a few hours earlier.

There's still a bit of mud around, but for the most part we were able to settle into a comfortable plodding pace which sees us back at the Environmental Centre a little after 10pm (so we're now back behind schedule, but are beginning not to care). We decided that we'd do the bathroom stop before going inside to check in/out, and ended up just swiping on through the checkpoint without stopping, leaving at around 10:20pm decked out in some lovely traffic vests.

Section 9: Environmental Centre to Black Shoot (Distance: ~6.5km, Total: 63km)
Last year, this section was crap. This year, it had been changed, and it wasn't for the better. Section nine sucked. Hugely.

We head out from the Environmental Centre onto the main road (hence the traffic vests) and walk across the road bridge over the edge of the Hinze Dam. We then encountered a person in a car where we had to turn off from the road - turned out to be Doug, the organiser, putting out extra ribbons and signs - and after hanging up a few ribbons on the way, wandered down a small embankment onto an old concrete road by the edge of the dam. While we walked along here I reminded Shane that he was supposed to be teaching me the Universe song (from one of the Monty Python movies) and he launched into an entertaining performance which included both singing and dancing (see... those hiking poles are useful). Did I learn the song? No - too many words. But it did provide us with something to do other than think about walking.

A few kilometres later we climbed our way up towards road level (literally - there was a rope to assist with the climb up) and wandered around a few more trees until we found a crossing manned by more SES folk. These ones had a fire, which we looked at a little jealously, but they insisted it was better to be out walking than sitting there.

Once across the road we found ourselves on what's been described by the organisers as a cow pad. This is fairly apt; I would hesitate to call it a trail.

I've not seen this section in daylight (as we didn't practice it), but there were glowsticks in the trees marking the trail so we could see that the trail went a fair way up. Once we'd climbed to the top of the hill the path meandered along a ridge for a while, however this still required effort and attention as the path was on a slight angle and tilted to the right. I started having a few smal issues with my right hip along here - I think due to the angle of the path - where when I moved my right leg there was an ache and one of the muscles in the inner hip area felt a little strained, but it wasn't serious at this point, just annoying. After a little while of walking on the angled trail we noticed the glowsticks beginning to descend into another gully. "But the checkpoint's at the top of the hill and to the left, not down and right," I protested. And yet the path went down anyway, and once again we were presented with a creek crossing.

And on the other side of the creek? That's right. Another hill. This one was also long and steep, and once again took us back up to the ridgeline before it headed back down to another gully.

This pretty much killed any scraps of morale we'd been clinging to. We stopped for a few moments at the bottom of the gully for a collective whinge session, but had to get back up and move because the night air was cold, and every time we stopped the sweat we'd broken out into during the uphills would cool us down quickly and we'd start shivering.

Once more we headed up the hill. Along the way we got a message from our support crew: "Hey there how u doin?". My reaction was fairly simple. "If I knew where we were I'd be a whole lot better". The hill kept going, and so did we - slowly. Eventually we found the water tank landmark which meant there was a little more hill to go, but we were close to the Black Stump checkpoint. Wayne had a slight energy hit from some jellybeans and powered off in front, followed by Brock who, it seems, will always take up a challenge for the lead, while Shane and I plodded along behind. But eventually we saw lights and the recognisable orange of the SES and wandered into the checkpoint, our spirits bouncing a little now that we were done with "that section". We'd checked in at 12:35am, about 90 minutes behind our planned schedule, but had pretty much given up following that by this point.

Section 10: Black Shoot to Syd Duncan Park (Distance: ~3km, Total: 66km)
We didn't stick around at the checkpoint long - it's notoriously cold through this part of the course as it's on the top of a hill, and despite the clear conditions meaning we had full benefit of the just-past-full-moon it's too cold to stop anywhere and appreciate the view.

As we walked out of the checkpoint, my phone rang (an unknown number).
"Hello?"
"Hello. What are you doing answering your phone?" Mum asked.
"Well, what are you doing ringing it?"
"I was trying to find you on the map."
"We're just left checkpoint... " I looked around, " checkpoint nine? Black Shoot. Hold on, I'll put you on speaker phone." Which I did.
"Hello!" Mum repeated.
There was a general chorus of "hello" from the guys as we walked along Mirani St, plus a call of "Do you know where your daughter is?"
Apparently it didn't matter - she didn't sound concerned :-) And, no, she didn't know where we were; the kml website hadn't been updated in a while. The conversation wrapped up quickly seeing as we were still walking and she was at work.

A little while later down the road we came across the grassy avenue (which despite being well signposted I still didn't recognise) and another few teams worth of people (it's hard to tell if groups of people are one or multiple teams at this point seeing as people start dropping out at a fairly high rate after about halfway). We wandered through the grass and the mud, around houses and trees, and eventually came out onto a road again where some wonderful locals were sitting out in the freezing cold (albeit with a fire and lanterns) handing out food to those of us crazy enough to be walking past. We picked up pieces of a caramel mud cake and they were thanked profusely for their efforts.

The cake revived our spirits a little, but there were a few more inclines on the way to Syd Duncan Park, and the pain in my hip was becoming more defined as we continued. The stairs, which I remember from last year, were a little bit of a challenge, but being about one kilometre from the checkpoint I just kept repeating that I could take something for the pain once I'd checked in.

Syd Duncan Park is situated on the top of a hill (isn't everything in this course?) and for anyone not competing in Kokoda would provide a nice view of the Gold Coast. Those of us dragging ourselves up the smallish hill from the main road are (a) facing the wrong way for the view, (b) too focused on the cars and happy, happy lights on the hill, and (c) too tired to care anyway. I'm not sure whether we found our support crew or they found us, but at this point I was uber-cranky and in need of some ibuprofen and managed to just blurt out "I need the swipy tent. Where's the swipy tent?". Being the good support crew they are, they just pointed and said "Through there". We checked in at 1:18am, around an hour and a half later than the original plan, but from this point it's only 30 kilometres to the end. (And if "it's only 30 kilometres to the end" doesn't sum up the mental place you need to be in to do this event, then I don't know what does.)

Section 11: Syd Duncan Park to Belliss Rd (Distance: 7.5km, Total: 73.5km)
We stopped at Syd Duncan Park until nearly 2am before dragging ourselves out of the chairs and shuffling towards the checkpoint tent to check out, and it was a long enough break to make our muscles begin to freeze up. The two ibuprofen I'd taken hadn't quite begun to kick in yet and I felt like I was forcing my right leg to move (so hopefully those painkillers would start working while we warmed back up).

The first half of this section is reasonable simple - just follow the bitumen road along the ridge until you reach the Hellfire Pass (it's an actual street up there). Once the bitumen stop, follow the trail. Sounds simple enough, but when your tired and it's dark, and your legs/knees/ankles/whatever are already hurting then the steep downhill requires a fair whack of concentration.

The painkillers had kicked in by then, and my knees were feeling better than they had been when we left Syd Duncan Park. My hip muscle didn't seem to benefit much at all. I found that walking slightly sideways with my left leg in front of my right kept my joints marginally happier, and we made reasonable time on the downhill despite being passed by a few teams on the way. All in all, walking down here wasn't as tough as I'd expected it to be (having never walked this section in the dark before).

We eventually found ourselves down the bottom of the hill, and a short wander along the dirt road later walked into the Belliss Rd checkpoint at around 3:42am (getting fairly close to 2 hours behind our estimated arrival time). We didn't stay long; it was too cold to stop. Deliberately stopping away from the fire setup by the checkpoint volunteers, we grabbed some food and continued on our way.

Section 12: Belliss Rd to Beaudesert Nerang Rd (Distance: 5km, Total: 78.5km)
Taking a right off Belliss Rd, we immediately came across Mt Nathan, the last real obstacle between us and the finish line. The trail leading up Mt Nathan is very eroded, and in order to walk up it we need to continually jump around from one stretch of dirt to another. We split up on the ascent: Brock and Wayne bounding along in front, me slowly trudging up behind, and Shane (who had stopped to take off a jumper) a little behind that.

It was on this hill that my right hip muscle started protesting loudly about lifting my leg, and I found myself changing my walking behaviour to use my left leg as the dominant leg: stepping up with the left first and pulling my right leg up behind. This made my left leg more tired and my the time I'd made it to the top of the hill Shane had well and truly caught back up. We found Brock and Wayne sitting in some bushes waiting for us, and then continued along the fence line and through the grassy area towards Nathan Valley Rd. As we walked along we figured we should call and let the support crew that we were on our way (perhaps 30 minutes out?). We apparently woke them up with a very cheery "Good morning! This is your 4:30am wake up call." (Don't know where all the happy spirits came from, nor where they went).

Nathan Valley Rd is sealed, and after walking for so long this is not a welcome thing. When your feet are sore, bitumen suddenly feels so much harder than dirt/grass to walk on. We walked for about one kilometre along the road, pretty much all downhill, some sloping and some steeper sections. At one point we, and the other half-dozen teams around us all scattered to the side of the road for a car that didn't appear to slow down at all, but it was otherwise uneventful. We found the checkpoint on the corner of the main road, which is where it was last year, however the support crew were parked another 700-800m up the road. We checked in at 5:07am and continued along the road towards the support crew. It felt longer than 800m, and once we stopped complaining about the distance to the cars, we noticed that the other teams were saying pretty much the same thing. But mapmyrun tells me it's no more than 900m, so perhaps we all have misguided senses of distance after walking nearly 80 kilometres!

Matt found us as we approached the cars (of which there were many) and walked with us the rest of the way to the support crew car where we sat until close to 6am. As usual, I changed my socks, but the guys, with their feet in various states of disrepair, chose not to.

Section 13: Beaudesert Nerang Rd to Nerang State Forest (Distance: 7.1km, Total: 85.6km)
Right before we left the checkpoint we were asked by a South African guy if he could walk with us as the rest of his team had pulled out (although, if you ask me, it doesn't matter how much pain you're in, if you can get to this checkpoint, you can get to the end). We didn't have any objections having him walks with us, so we left the last major checkpoint with five instead of four.

The sky began to lighten as we headed into Nerang State Forest, but for the time being it was still dark enough that the headlights weren't out of place. Our add-on walker began to tell us a story of when his team were walking around the loop at Numinbah earlier when some crazy girl went walking straight through the creek.

"Yeah.... that was me," I said. "I always end up with wet feet anyway. Was just saving the trouble of falling in first."
"So, was your team the one with the Rocky music?" Shane asked.
"That was us," he replied.

For a while we walked along the trail but realised that it was different to where we usually walk through Nerang - it was flatter and aiming a little more east than usual - but eventually we came across a marker which indicated that we were still going the right way. The trail eventually merged with the one we were familiar with about 20 minutes worth of undulations before the last uphill. It'd been a little over four hours since I last took any ibuprofen and it was just beginning to wear off so I took two more tablets hoping they'd get back to working before we got to the hill.

As far as hills go on this course, this is isn't really all that bad. It's really only a few minutes worth of uphill, but at this stage it's big enough. Still not being able to lift my right leg properly, I told the guys I'd see them at the checkpoint which was at the top, and they all wandered up at their own pace. Continuing on with my somewhat successful plan of leading with my left leg, I managed to get to the top of the hill about a minute after the guys did (although was a little bit teary when I got to the top - partly because my leg hurt and partly because I knew that was the last hill I'd need to get up). After checking in - at 7:07am, 24 hours and 3 minutes after we'd started - I sat down long enough to grab my banana from my backpack before we continued on.

Section 14: Nerang State Forest to Finish (Distance: 10.4km, Total: 96km)
Most of this, the last section, is simply walking along the ridgeline. Sure, it undulates a little, but it's mostly flat. Just as well, because I was still doing that one-leg-shuffle-walk.

Along the way I worked out that if I lean over to my left side far enough, my right leg lifts a little further off the ground. And by swinging left-right-left I could get both feet to lift off the ground. Leaning forward a little helps move my feet forward (this is easier to do on a downward slope... gravity being what it is) and presto - minimal effort "walking".

Or so I thought. After a while this becomes a tiring as everything else (not to mention amusing for everyone else - apparently I look like a waddling duck) but it's still less painful than attempting to use my right hip.

This section is not particularly interesting, and as such just drags on. But despite feeling slower than when I did this in 2007, it turns out we were walking at much the same pace as I did last year.

We found ourselves looking for landmarks: the stupid, hard-to-spot corner we turn down on practices, the steepish downhill, the powerlines and the quarry. The quarry is perhaps 2-3 kilometres from the end, but this still seems to drag on an on. A little after the quarry I begin to feel things seizing up again, and have a bit of an argument with myself about resting or continuing. I took advantage of a few seconds break to wait for Wayne to catch up by stopping and trying to bend down into a squat: not a good idea. But eventually we all caught up about 500m from the end and kept together as a group.

Our last obstacle was a bunch of kids riding around on their bikes behind us to called out "coming through!". I don't think any of us had the ability or reaction time to move anywhere so the kids just rode around and through us.

The finish line, as always, had people everywhere, and being as tired as we were, having someone direct us to the checkin people was a good idea. As they did last year, they asked us to sign something, and once again, my hands are not capable of signing anything after all that. Not that they care. It also turns out our support crew were standing behind us while we were doing this and the only one who'd noticed them was Wayne. Sorry guys!

We checked in at 9:33am, 26 hours and 29 minutes after we started and were the 46th team to finish with all four team members.

Once the support crew had pointed out where they had left the car, I immediately went over and collapsed on the grass. Shane, Brock and Wayne all took their shoes off and all had horribly puffy, blistered feet (think also that white puffy skin you get if you walk around in sweaty socks too long...). This reminded me that I hadn't taken my shoes off either, but my feet were fine. Sore, but fine. I guess that sock changing routine isn't just superstition at all.

Most of us ended up droopy or sleeping in the car - some before we'd left Nerang. But our support crew managed to get us (and themselves) home in one piece and with minimal gear mixups when unpacking the car.

I have to give a huuuge thanks to Matt, Dennis and Jenesse who picked us up early on Saturday, put up with all our whining and complaining, heated up water and food, cleaned up after us when we left the checkpoints in a chaotic state, and then drove us all home again afterwards, all on very little sleep. Thanks also to the rest of Team Insanity - Shane, Brock and Wayne - who seemed determine to finish despite sore knees, blistered feet and tired everythng else, and who made for excellent conversation along the way (if any of it was repeated I wouldn't have noticed).

Thanks also to everyone who sponsored our entry. I think we ended up raising around $1300 for the youth program which is more than I was expecting we'd get to. The Kokoda Kids started out with a headcount of 35 and finished with 32 in a time of 34 hours 15 minutes.

Epilogue
Now that it's all over (again), would I go back a third time? Absolutely. I have a score to settle with this course: I do believe that it's possible (for me) to get to the end in under 24 hours, I just haven't done it yet. So I'll be out there training within the next few months with that aim in mind. After two years of mostly walking it, I think I've come to accept that I'm going to have to run parts of it next year so finding teammates who are prepared to commit to that same goal may prove a little more difficult than asking people "would you like to walk 96km?".

It is third time lucky, right? :-)

Yay, I Have A Decision...

It's taken four days of thought, analysis, talking to myself and seesawing from one choice to the other, but I've finally made a decision on the job front.

I've been trying to work out whether I want to take the job in Brisbane which I was offered last week (and consequently the redundancy), or whether I was prepared to hand in the redundancy and take a transfer to base myself in California and continue working on the product suite I've been associated with now for the last five years. Both have their merits, and they're different enough offers that it wasn't as easy a decision as perhaps I would have liked, but I've chosen to take the job in Brisbane and have been much happier since I decided that.

Plus, it makes for a good story when I say I've turned down a six figure salary... :-)

What Employment Slowdown?

Brisbane really is a small town.

It hasn't taken long for word to start to spread that we're all looking for work. There are messages on forums and lists, emails and phone calls from recruiters and referees, and just anyone who knows of someone looking for staff.

I've never seen anything like it.

The really cool thing is that everyone's been very sharing with the job details. We look concurrently through seek and mention anything that sounds interesting whether we're thinking of applying or not. We've been printing out resumes and offering comments and ideas. And we've been passing each others details around from time to time.

One of my referees rang me on Wednesday morning looking for my resume for a job over at Flight Centre. Another friend of mine IM'd me about the same job around about the same time. After passing my details along I'd lined up an interview by lunchtime on Wednesday, barely 24 hours after the redundancy news officially broke. I've been for two interviews in the last 24 hours and have one concrete job offer and the offer of a transfer rather than a redundancy.

It's all very crazy.

Day Of Reckoning

There's been a lot of talk around the office for a while about how long those of us working on Healthcare in Brisbane would still have our jobs. Today all the rumours and theories were proved correct: all eleven of us are being made redundant.

After receiving an email yesterday afternoon advising us all of a meeting with HR and a visiting US manager we all assumed the worst and packed everything up. So it was a bit of a surprise when they told us that the redundancy was effective August 5 rather than immediately. Or at least it was a surprise to me - I've never been through a redundancy that didn't walk people out the door on the same day.

The package is good; one month per year of service. And I think this is the push towards the door I've probably needed for a while (5+ years in the one place is a long time in my line of work).