Black Mountain Challenge

Canberra, Sunday 8th December 2013

Black Mountain Challenge is a 5km fun run from Lake Burley-Griffin to the top of Black Mountain, with an ascent of 250m.

An easy 15 minute jog to the start line at the National Museum of Australia served as my warm up. Despite being just a ‘fun run’ there were still some good runners there – including the world stair running champion. My plan was to go as hard as possible while still enjoying it and I knew that a top 3 finish was possible. Of course, I don’t know the calibre of any of the runners here so all I could do was run my own race as best I could.

The first 1km was flat along the lake shore. I held a steady pace, not sprinting to keep up with anyone as I wanted to be fresh for the hill. A further 500m of gradual incline before we turned and headed up Black Mountain. Here I began to pull away from those around me and for the rest of the climb I gradually passed other runners. For the entire climb there were two women about 100m ahead of me, and with less than 1km to go I managed to overtake both of them. As I crested the top of the hill a photographer called out that I was 2nd woman. That put a smile on my face! From there it was only a 300m loop to the finish line.



I finished in 25:11, 2nd woman and 25th overall (out of 144).
Very happy with my run – the hardest part was the 1km of flat at the beginning! Felt strong throughout the whole climb.

Heather (2nd), Louise Sharp (1st), and Kym Chisholm (3rd)

Results

Photos