Maroondah Dam 30km Trail Race

The summit of Mount St Leonard - the highest point on the course at 1010m - comes at the 19km meaning there was about 12km to go to the finish, which, if you were on a bike would be a fantastic, endless downhill with barely a pedal needing to be turned, and in fact, more likely to burn your brakes out given how damn steep it is!!! Such is the profile of the Maroondah Dam 30km (actually 31km!!) trail race that getting to this point, including about 900m of ascent, was almost the easy part...the downhill from there is so severe and long as to shake your hip bones out of their socket, and rip your quads from your legs. But at least it was down.

During years of cycling around Healesville I'd come to recognise Mt St Leonard rising above with a comms tower on top, how steep the slopes were, and the spectacular Yarra Ranges from where it rises. So with the goal race of 6ft Track Marathon 3 weeks later, the timing was perfect for Monty and I to compete in this as a final hit-out to see how our mountain legs were shaping up. The event has been going for 18 years, with the feature being the 50km event that goes 20km leading to the start of the 30km event, and thereafter on the same course. They started at 8am and us at 10am, meaning 10-15 runners had passed before we got going with the leading pair about 20-25min ahead of us.

I'd heard bits about the course, and studied closely a profile map that showed it pretty much went straight up about 400m in 7km, then along a ridge with intermittent ups and downs before a final, steep climb to Mt St Leonards then down to the finish. But I couldn't track down an entry list so I had eyes peeled for recognisable faces pre-race...with none to be seen, not that it means anything really as this was more about a test of our legs than a competitive "smack-down".

The start line is on a hill, and you look upwards to where the course goes, which gave the 130 or so in the 30km event time to ponder what lay ahead while we counted down to 10am, cheering 50km runners as they came through. Then it was time to go, straight up, around a corner, and continue the up, and up, and up. I was feeling OK and quickly found myself in the lead, and after about 200m in the clear from the field...uphills certainly sort people out quickly!! This was about the last I saw of anyone in the 30km race until the finish, but ahead of us were the 50km runners whose endurance I admire...you’ll never find me amongst them!!

As promised, the track went up, levelled out a little (kind of) before a really steep kick just after 2km that brought me a walk, that being the most effective way of getting up parts of it – it was very steep. But even at that pace I was passing 50km guys, each of them checking I wasn’t one of their competitors before giving a grunt of encouragement. We were going over real cross-country terrain, through grass, over rocks, occasional tree trunks, under beautiful grand trees, and generally up. This continued on in various forms until, sure enough, at 7km we crested this part of the climb and opened up to a view of Mt St Leonards off in the distance.

The route continued on mostly on dirt roads through a range of forest which was really serene. The temperature had dropped notably, and some light rain started up – we were at about 900m altitude – and I was loving the surrounds, although mostly on my own apart from occasionally catching some 50km runners, eventually catching the second place 50km runner at 16km, who had dropped back since we saw them as we waited to start.

There was an aid station at 18km where I drank a fuel bottle from the drop box they provided for the race, before heading for the final push up Mt St Leonards, which was possibly steeper than the earlier section and thus involved more walking, but the reward was the comms tower and the signal that it was downhill from here...which at the time I was thankful for, until I actually started going down.

The first couple of kms down from the summit were steep, rocky, steep, rough, steep, slippery and steep. The main effort was to not fall over – frontwards or backwards – and hoping it would level out to ease the pounding on our quads, and to actually feel like we were actually running than stopping from falling over!! Eventually it did “flatten” out, but was still downhill, which was still hard after the beating the legs had taken.

As we went down I was focusing on my time, because even though I had no real point of reference as to what is a good time on the course (research revealed 2:26hr as the fastest time I could find), I had a time of sub-2:20hr in mind. I also knew it was longer than 30km, but not sure if it was 31 or 32km. Some rough calculations as I ran down told me it was going to be tight, and I’d need to average about 3:40 min/km to get sub-2:20hr, which was more dependent on the terrain coming up than my ability.
The temperature also started to warm up, and became more humid as we descended hundreds and hundreds of metres...with a couple of nasty and unexpected uphills as well. At one aid station I was told the lead 50km runner was about 10min ahead, way too far to catch.

We finally bottomed out of the descent after about 9km and 850m+ of descending, with a short flat section and a small, heart breaking hill to climb before the last drop down to the finish. The final aid station was (apparently) about 3km from home – probably a bit more – and time was running out, at about 2:06hr, and I grit my teeth and pressed on only knowing that we crossed the Maroondah Dam wall as a landmark to aim for just before the finish.

I could sense we were getting closer to the picnic / finish area based on the trees around, and the sight of a pump house which must surely be near the dam wall. The path went down a little fenced ally, around a corner and finally the dam wall just as my watch ticked over 2:18:00...less than 2 min left. This was the flattest and smoothest surface of the whole race, and I picked up the pace, past some tourists, past a friend and her kids, past a photographer – no smiles, sorry – and off the other end of the wall, which led in turn to a steep, winding path down to the picnic ground...tick, tick, tick to 2:19:00. Just a little bit further, right the way around the car park, across a road and then under the finish arch. 2:19:40hr. Phew!! That was close.

The downhill had killed my legs. I was feeling quite OK up to then, but sure as I stopped my quads and hips tightened up, with only mild relief from stretching. But nonetheless, I was really happy with my run and how comfortably I felt during it, especially during the uphill drags. Just gotta let the soreness go in a couple of days... I waited to cheer in finishers – the 50km leader was 5min ahead at the finish – with a mix of 30km and 50km runners crossing the line, including Monty in 4th place in 2:43hr. It was good day out and good prep for 6ft Track in 3 weeks time.