Weekend Run: Superheroes and Villains, and Mount Juliet

Event: Wild Wombat Fat Ass 30K
Theme: Superheroes vs Super Villains
Date: 25th May 2014 (Sunday)
Time: 7.30am
Venue: Lerderderg State Park
Distance: 16km x 2

Group photo of the 7.30am runners. So many Batmans!

I had initially offered to be one of the course photographers for the day. All dressed up and hiding behind the bushes appealed to me, I suppose, seeing that I was 'retired' from running.

Wolverine and Mario greeted each other a g'day.

Then I realised that it was a bit silly to hide in the bushes for more than 2 hours until the first runner came by.

Not everyone ran in their costume. Some of them took them off just before the run!

Our photoshoot!

The hubs and I ended up doing one loop in ours before calling it quits. We weren't much in a rush, since I couldn't run fast, anyway, but it was a shame that no one ran with us!

We took our time framing our pictures carefully, waiting for the breeze to pick up our capes before the timer went off.

The 9am group returned, led by Wonder Woman!

We sat around and waited for everyone's return, munching on the food brought by Yuan, Aliona, Tara, Rachelle and myself. From vege sticks and dip to sushi to coconut ice to choc eclairs to amazeballs, it was a lovely picnic.

The winners of the best costume win an entry to the You Yangs event in July, for the 15km or 30km categories. So, we will be seeing Wolverine and Wonder Woman in their costume again, hopefully! :)

For more photos. visit Wild Wombat's Facebook album here.

p.s. My 1st fancy dress party, haha!

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Date: 31st May 2014

Location: Mount Juliet, Yarra Ranges

It was quite late when we started, almost 3pm, I suppose. I don't remember but haha, we do have a tendency to laze about in the morning until lunch, before we decide to head out and get some fresh air.

Mount Juliet boasts of being the highest peak in Yarra Ranges with the summit at about 1120m high. We honestly didn't realise that it would be that tough when we started out.

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from grumbling!

The track was pretty wild and busy.

It did remind me of Clear Spot as hiking up to the top required quad power!

As the track towards the top were wild, we had to be careful where we placed our feet lest we'd slip into fluffy tufts of dried grass.

The last 2km up took forever ... (to me, that is).

We met a couple who were on their way down and I asked whether the view was worth it. The lady answered that there was a giant corn.

I'm not very good at selfies. :)

That's it??
I climbed all the way just for this?

Apparently it's called a cairn, and it was built in the 1800's for a geodetic survey. I have checked for its definition and unfortunately, I still don't know what this geodacy is all about!

Just follow the orange arrows!

It was dark before we reached the bottom of the track so we had to use our head lamps. Once the steep 2km was cleared, the rest of the track was runnable and I did my best to run as quickly as possible!

To be just the only two people on the trails in the dark can be a bit spooky, brrr!

As much as I enjoyed the climb (it was a good workout), the long drive to get to the location was not worth the effort. The rest of the tracks were off limits (most likely because it's situated at Maroondah Dam Catchment Area), leaving only Mount Juliet Walking Track open to the public. With just that, it was less than 10km to and fro, from the car park.