To Carricktown And Back

The last couple of weeks have been a bit rough.

The reality of my friend Claire’s health really knocked me hard and I lost a lot of motivation to go out and run as I went through the motions of coming to terms with it. Although I’m doing this ultra run for Cystic Fibrosis and everyone who lives with CF, at my lowest point I felt that she stood to gain nothing from my endeavour or that it just wasn’t enough which seemed so unfair seeing as she is the inspiration for this journey.

However, life goes on, and thanks to some readers leaving kind messages I’m trying to get back on track. I’m still finding the work- training balance difficult, especially since the temperatures started hitting over 30°C, surviving the work day in that heat is just exhausting. So the weekends are for training.

Claire came over in the weekend, I had planned to go walking up the Nevis Road from the Bannockburn end, but the Pub to Pub Gutbuster was on and I didn’t particularly want to be run over by some serious mountain bikers on their way down. A good excuse to suss out other local walking tracks so instead Claire and I walked up to Carricktown, a gold mining site from the 19th century.

To Carricktown

Another rough 4WD track up into the mountains that surround this pace that gives you the most stunning views of the Cromwell Basin. A good incline that gets the heart pumping, the lungs heaving and the legs burning. Claire’s need for exercise and my need to grunt up hills works out really well! Carricktown sits 3km (380m vertical climb) along this road that continues on to more historic gold mining sites so one day I plan to keep walking these roads paved with gold to see where they will go.

Details of the Carricktown walk – from the Walk Cromwell brochure

I was very impressed by how well Claire coped – she really is such an inspiration.

Until next time, thanks for reading!