Heading west you’ll exit the event centre with around 400m of flat running to ease yourself in before you exit the safety of the event hub and turn left. You get your first taste of climbing for a few moments, before you cross over Mitchells Way and continue on. You’ll head down and through Dead Horse Gully, the lowest point on your journey. From there, it doesn’t take long for the climb to start.

You will now begin the vertical ascent toward the summit of the mountain, and, even though your course doesn’t take you right to the top, you’re about to get a really good taste of what the mountain is all about. Dual tyre tracks interspersed with wildflowers and spring grasses dot much of the climb in the lower elevations. Your view of the summit is quickly obscured by the ridgelines in the foreground that you inevitably must pass over.

After around 6km of steady climbing next to the bubbling creek to your left, your route takes a sharp hairpin to the right and you’re met with a serious incline. This will continue with switchbacks and false flats for the next several kilometres as you climb sharply out of the valleys and begin to see the sprawling farmland below you to the north. Thus far you have traversed the same terrain that the 32km course covers, but as you hit Mitchells Way Firetrail you will turn right and on to a steady descent. Your elevation at this point is 1,150m and this will be as close as you get to the summit of the mountain.

Your descent begins steadily at first on genuinely smooth and graded gravel road. As you begin to drop down you’ll quickly notice the eucalyptus native forest give way to pine forest plantation. Then, as you open your stride and pick up your pace, you drop into recently logged hills and a more open and challenging landscape. At around the 8km point you will be treated to stunning, panoramic views of farmland to the north and in the foreground you will see the race village before you.

You can really let go of the brakes and pin your ears back now, knowing that you descend all the way to the finish line. As you swing off Mitchells Way you will loop back into the race village area and across the finish line to complete the 11km loop.

You went there, and you’re back again…