The drive up to Falls Creek was pretty interesting. Part of the route involved travelling on the Great Alpine Road, before veering off it 70km or so before we got to Falls Creek. The journey was basically up, down and around the side of mountains, so lots of hairpin bends and steep uphills and downs. This slowed us down a bit, that and stopping numerous times for photos of the superb views. Once to look at a big squashed snake on the road which Chris insisted on doing a U Turn to photograph. Dead or not, I wasn’t impressed.
About 30km from Falls creek we then started climbing much more steeply for at least 15-20min. I can understand why the road is a ‘summer only’ road! I wouldn’t fancy my chances on snow and ice, especially with a fairly large drop right at the side of the road and no barriers! What surprised us a little was that, about 15km from Falls Creek, it then levelled out and was (by mountain standards) pretty flat. We decided it would be good for training and began to wonder if any of the elite athletes used it for tempo runs.
Our biggest disappointment of the day came when we checked into the Lodge at Falls Creek. The kitchen was brilliant, the room nice and there was lots of space in the lounge. Our disappointment was to hear from the owner that, that very morning a group of international level Australian distance runners had checked out of this very lodge having stayed there for ten days. Gutted we missed them!
One other little story to tell occurred whilst out on our run. We spotted a fellow runner running towards us. Immediately interested as I am in other runners, I pointed him out to Chris and as I did so we noticed he was running pretty quick. Our eyes perked up as we ran towards him to see who he was. As soon as he passed us we both looked at each other and squawked ’Gunther Weidlinger! - probably whilst he was still within earshot. Gunther is the Austrian record holder for every distance from 1500m to the marathon (including steeplechase) and recently ran 2:10 for the marathon. He is the only person in the world to have such a record. We were nearly at the end of our run and deliberated for some time if we could stalk him, or follow him back to see where he was staying. But we decided it may look a bit odd so we were content to sit on a rock at the side of the road and wait for him to run back past us so we could take a photo (and Chris could shout ’Gunther’ really loudly whilst waving madly) - not discreet at all!!!
Some people may remember Gunther Weidlinger from his infamous fall during the steeple at the Osaka World Champs. Ouch!!
why isn't the dead snake photo uploaded?
ReplyDeleteThat "fall" looks more like a massacre to me
Dead snake photo gives me the creeps. I still kept a good distance away, incase it was just pretending and was going to eat me.
ReplyDeleteThe fall is pretty impressive isn't it. I will never do steeplechase as a result!