I was ummming and ahhhing about entering a race so close to the upcoming Ultra Trail Australia 100km ultramarathon with this marathon scheduled only 3 weeks prior that race but i felt i needed a solid race/training session in the lead up to build my confidence. Therefore i left it to the last minute to enter, only registering the weekend prior to the Maroondah Dam marathon.

Maroondah Dam is located about 1hr drive from Melbourne’s CBD in the Yarra Ranges National Park. It has been many years since i have visited the area. Melbourne’s weather had put on a perfect Sunday morning with mild and sunny conditions.

The marathon was one of the running distances on offer at the race, which also included a 10km, 21km, 30km and 50km ultramarathon.

The 50km ultramarathon and 42.2km marathon began together with the race starting from the Henderson picnic area just below the Maroondah Dam wall, and began with runners heading straight across the wall and up and over Henderson Hill and down to Donnelly’s Weir car park where the first aid station was located about 5km mark. I took a very conservative approach to the initial hill climb knowing we were about to ascend from the 5km to 15km mark up to the top of Mt St Leonard, this climb’s average gradient was between 9-17% and peaking in the last 2km to the top at a challenging 22% gradient. I enjoyed chatting to a fellow trailrunner during this section, he told me he recently celebrated his 50th birthday and decided to celebrate this milestone by running a 50km ultramarathon. I love hearing stories like these out on the trails. The majority of this part of the course was along fire trails but the last section became extremely rocky and would have been very treacherous in wet conditions. I was very happy to get to the top and descent down the other side to the 3rd aid station. It was now time to head onto the single track around the Tanglefoot loop. This was a beautiful section of the course, traversing through the rainforest gullies and mountain ash trees. I was feeling good and kept a conscious effort on my nutrition with regular small amounts of food and liquid.

I continued onto aid station #4 where i needed to complete a 3km loop before heading back to aid station #3, as i was running through aid station #4 i heard an official say make sure you turn right at the next track turnoff, as this where the 50km and marathon runners courses split, as you didn't want to do an extra 7km if you took a wrong turn. I took the turn to the right but then i had a moment of panic as i wasn’t sure if this was for this first loop as i also heard them say after you complete the first loop you will come back past aid station #4. I stopped for a moment and checked the course map on my phone but was still was not certain i had headed the right way as i hadn’t seen any runners for a while, fortunately about a minute later another runner came by and confirmed i was heading the right direction, so i continued on with the loop and double checked again when i made it back to the aid station to be sure. It was a bit stressful and later heard there was a few runners from the 50km event who had taken a wrong turn (and would end up only running 47km). I felt much better when i was on the main track heading back to aid station #3, where i stopped and topped up my water and sports drink for the final 14km or so kilometres.

I now had the fun of climbing up to the top of Mt St Leonard from the opposite side, this section is just as steep as on the way out but a much shorter climb ( approx. 1km) , so i hiked this section and then onto the big descent! I took the first section carefully as I didn’t want to blow out my quads but also fall on the rocky section of trail. I made it safely back onto the main fire trail and continued descending back to aid station #2. I kept reminding myself to be conservative with my running especially in this later stages of the marathon remembering there is a much bigger challenge coming up in 3 short weeks, it was a challenge as I’m very competitive with myself to give my best, so i decided the best way to do that was to alternate with some short sections of hiking and running. This was a good idea as i got into a good rhythm and felt the kilometres tick by at a consistent pace. I quickly stopped at aid station #2 to grab some fruit cake to break up the liquids i had been consuming. It was nice chew on some food. I caught up to a fellow runner during the later stages and we chatted briefly then i hiked up Henderson hill for the 2nd time and enjoyed seeing the Maroondah dam wall but didn't realise my favourite part of the run was yet to come. My daughter came and joined me for the last few hundred metres as ran together to cross the finish line. That was a very special moment!

I enjoyed Maroondah Dam marathon and the overall running event organised by Trails Plus.

I felt it was a good, solid hit out with 1902 metres of elevation gain/descent prior to the upcoming race.

Now to fine tune, recover and taper...

Nutrition

3.5 x 200ml sachets of tailwind nutrition

2 handfuls of almonds

Half a vegemite sandwich

1 x piece of fruit cake