In the infamous words of Marshall Bruce Mathers III (aka Eminem) from his song “Without Me”

Guess who’s back, back again
Shady’s back, tell a friend
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back?

Yes, I’ve been slack with my posting since the GC Marathon and I’m now getting some order back into my life so I should be a weekly blog post again (with the odd one in between too!!).  Work has been extremely busy with a change of career and then the Olympics came along.  With training, work and sleepless nights trying to keep up with Olympic events on UK time… well I got a little anti-social-media.  Even my Twitter account has been neglected!

Since my last post there has been loads of stuff going on.  Rather than fill up one stupidly long Post updating you, I’ll feed those events into the blog posts over the next few weeks or so.

Today, I thought I would share with you the joys of running along the Warburton Trail.

For those who haven’t heard of the Warburton (or Warby) Trail it runs from Lilydale to Warburton and is 38km of crushed rock or bitumen through beautiful bush and farmlands.

Warby Trail

The last two weekends I have been for a run along the Warby Trail as well as mountain bike riding.  And even though we used to live very close to it, I didn’t appreciate how good it is and what a great place to go for a run – fair to say I neglected this hidden gem.

My run was from Cogs Cafe in Mt Evelyn and then out and back.  First run was a shade over 24kms and today’s was just over 26kms.  The sound of bluebirds greets you as you enter the trail.  Little or no cars, no traffic lights and soft track which is good for the legs.  The only obstacles are the occasional rabbit bounding across the trail, horse riders, mountain bike riders, dog walkers, bush walkers and of course lunatic runners!  But nice wide trails and good etiquette shown by all so far.

Check out some of the new friends I made on my last two runs.

The wombat in the photo was funny.  The first time I saw him I was tearing down the trail on the mountain bike and I had to hit the skids to avoid running into him.  I’m not sure who was more surprised – him or me!  Next time I was running and neither of us was caught by surprise (that’s right – I’m still not very fast!).

The photos below provide a bit of a view of the trail between Mt Evelyn and Woori Yallock.

The other week I encountered a fairly significant obstacle – trees down across the trail.  Not too bad as you will see and easy to traverse (on foot) and continue on.  But what impressed me was that a week later the tree had been cut up and removed.  The whole trail is so well maintained and in really good condition.  Even with all the rain we have had, the trail was not that muddy due to the excellent drainage.

Minor obstacle on the Warby Trail

With all the training I was doing leading up to the GC Marathon and even up to the Run Melbourne Half Marathon (which was 2 weeks later) I have been running a lot on hard concrete paths and bitumen roads.  A change onto the Warby Trail has been good for the legs.  Also, the Warby Trail has a fair amount of rise and fall so it provides some good hills training.

My next race is a 30km on the Yarra Valley Grape Run and depending on how that goes, the Melbourne Marathon isn’t far away!!  I’m enjoying training at the moment and have added both swimming and bike riding to increase my strength and eventually targeting triathlons in the not too distant future…. subject for another Post!

Running Song of the Week

“Running” – by Saving Cleopatra

Rather than my top five running songs, I’m just going to pick one from each training run and try to introduce some of the new stuff I am listening to.  This week’s song is by a fantastic new band “Saving Cleopatra” (which also happens to be the band my son Matt is in) and their debut single launching this month is called (very aptly) “Running”.

You can listen to it at Triple J Unearthed on the link below: http://www.triplejunearthed.com/SavingCleopatra and check out the band at http://www.savingcleopatra.com/

My final word on the Warby Trail – While I have neglected it in the past, I am really enjoying it now.  Exploring new runs (especially the long ones) is certainly a good way to inject some interest into your training.  If you haven’t been down the Warby Trail lately, do yourself a favour and check it out.  You might even bump into my mate the Wombat!

Happy Running!!