struggle through 22km Darlington long run

Saturday 1st December 2007; Ran 22km in 2hrs 58min 43 HR 129 at end
Splits; 1.14/1,44. Darlington to Great Eastern Hwy turnaround just past Mundaring and back. Railway Heritage trail with hills group runners ahead.

Got there late, just in time to see Hills group runners leaving. Managed to catch the injured runners walking including Gary, but was really struggling from the word go. Legs weary from last nights 10k on track, and just generally tired from not enough sleep, poor recovery change-over, general fatigue from another tough and frustrating at times week. Weary mentally and physically. Saw Terry running back (probably he went on the 17km hilly Llama loop run). Made heavy weather of it running uphill, and wanted to walk, but managed to go through Mundaring in 64 minutes only a few minutes adrift of what I normally do for there. Had one powerade which I drank a lot of about this time, and the conditions were very nice, with a little bit of drizzle, but not too much, so beautiful conditions in the beautiful hills!
Thought about turning at Mundaring but figured no I should try to get to Great Eastern Hwy. Tough going all the way, and the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should just go home. Fought this by reminding myself that 6-inch is only 2 weeks away, and it would be downhill on the way back. Made it to 11km mark atGreat Eastern Highway in 1.14, again not too bad, especially the way I was feeling. On the way back I ended up really struggling and walking a few times, plus stopping a few times to get gravel stones out of my shoes and socks. Found another reason to stop by reading all the signs about the railway history along the way. Learnt a bit more about the history of the place dating back to the 1800's when Mundaring Weir dam was built, and the Goldfields water supply started, and blokes looking for work in the goldfields used to camp at Mundaring. If only governments today had the same courage to build a Kimberley pipeline/canal etc...I reckon there would be plenty of people up north, forexample the Aboriginals in the communities up there the government keeps throwing money at, and cracking down on alcohol abuse and other problems, I am pretty sure a lot of them could do a good job of building a pipeline/canal to Perth, if given the opportunity to train on the job. Maybe I am just talking through my hat...who knows...God knows everything thats for sure.

Found a big sign about Mahogany Creek which mentioned a bloke called William Phillips who mined gravel from a quarry called Flat Rock near Mahogany Creek. Could be a distant relative of mine, and pretty sure that the Phillips Rd there is named after him. Mahogany Inn has a function room called the Prince of Wales.
Mahogany is so called cos they got timber from a Jarrah forest nearby which initially they thought was the English wood Mahogany because of its rich red colour and quality.

Counted off each 1.5km section and finally got to the finish after consuming my last mouthful of powerade and a Tri-Berry GU at MUndaring on the way back. I only had one 600ml Powerade, but the occasional drizzle and cool temperatures meant that heat was not a factor in the beautiful forest...Felt discouraged but kept myself motivated with Paradigm Shift song Burning Love in my head. Hoping Kathryn and Jacob were ok.

Overall a tough slow OD (Overdistance) style run, with legs very! weary, low intensity, low heart rates, and my heart not in it really today mentally.
Out there a few minutes shy of 3 hours so a good amount of time, makes this a solid overdistance session and coming on the back of last nights 10k its almost like running for 4 hours, so might be enough to keep me a chance of going sub 6 hours at 6 inch in 2 weeks time.

Not the most enjoyable run physically, but mentally a good one to have under the belt, and probably very worthwhile physiologically. The hard ones are often the ones where you make big gains, we shall see....