"The Crack" - between Brooklyn and Cowan
Seeing as we got through last week so well it was time to up the ante again - this week was a double leg and a significant part of the first leg was done in the pre-dawn darkness. It was an opportunity for AJ to experience an extended walk on the trail in the dark, and an opportunity for the rest of us to refresh their memory. Just to make sure it wasn't too easy we decided to combine the darkness with the first two legs. 
After a nice early wake up call we hit the road just before 0400 and were walking out of the Brooklyn Car Park just after 0500. It is amazing how much colder 7 degrees feels when you know you have 29kms ahead of you. At least with the steep climb on the concrete track we didn't stay cold for too long, and pretty soon the blood was flowing nicely. With no moon and just the light of our headlamps we decided steady pace was the go. Except for a few rustles in the bush besides the track it appears we were the only "wildlife" that was out of bed that early. Fortunately as the daylight started to break across the trail we found we were setting a good pace and by the time we headed down into Jerusalem Bay the brand new day was well and truly upon us. As we crossed the highway at Cowan it was heartening to see several other groups of Oxfamers getting ready to set off on their own adventure. When we arrived at Checkpoint 1 we stopped the clock at 3:04 - just 2 minutes slower than our last effort - with the first hour or so in the full darkness we were very happy with this time. After a 5 minute break for a stretch and some muesli bars (it appears Fred's pack has finally run out) we headed off again towards Berowra Waters.
Shortly after leaving Checkpoint 1 we met up with two other teams getting into their training. One even had a four-legged member of their team training with them - come to think of it if Tony P's knee doesn't get the OK soon we could also be looking use Fred's dog Hoover as our fourth member! The little fellow would have been very tired by Saturday night as he kept running between the back and front of the group - OK when we were close but as we got over 200m apart his little legs were going fast. Good luck guys and hope to see out on the trail again.
Having left our new friends we continued on to Berowra Waters and then started the long climb up to the relative flatness of the fire trail. There was still a lot of ground water seeping out but the trail is in very good condition. Like usual it is about at this time the mind turns to the most taxing of intellectual pursuits - are you going to have a pie, a spring roll or a Chicko roll when you get to the end? Anyway this kept us all distracted enough to not realise that we were actually setting a pretty good pace. After the pleasant surprise of last week's 2hrs 36min time we weren't expecting anything close to that having already done the first leg. As we arrived at Checkpoint 2 Tony stopped the clock and we had achieved at a very credible 2hrs 40mins and we felt we had earned that spring roll! While we know that it will be a different story during the actual event, it is very pleasing to see our training resulting in stronger performances.
As the weather cools down and the event nears it is great to see more people out on the trail. Our next walk will be a "triple-leg" up around the 40km mark so hopefully we can get through that OK and work towards some regular 50km legs before the event gets too close. Hope to see see out there!
THE WALKERS: AJ, Fred, Tony R
THE STATS
Start – Cp1
Start Time: 5:03am
Duration: 3:04:19
Finish Time: 8:08am
Distance: 15.12km
Average Pace: 12.12 min/km
Average Speed: 4.9 km/h
Cp1 - Cp2
Start Time: 8:13am
Duration: 2:39:55
Finish Time: 10:53am
Distance: 11.65km
Average Pace: 13.44min/km
Average Speed: 4.4 km/h
Total Time: 5:44:14
Total Distance: 26.77km
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