Mount Hotham Day 3 November 2

Arriving at Tavare Park this morning found yesterdays time was 1:46, another so/so time, still Mount Hotham promised to be much more runnable and i was looking forward to the extra distance.
Nice easy start along the Ovens River but soon we'd hit the trailhead and was rapidly passing early walkers, was happy to spot 25 time Four Peak Veteran Peter Le Busque just in front of me (having started 5 minutes? earlier) as i knew he was always good to follow though not as fast as when i was last here, actually passed him on a downhill stretch just before Washington Creek (complete with bridge i can remember unsteadily using a log in the old days !).
Here was my first navigational mistake, having immediately passed some walkers after crossing the bridge i then had the trail (on the sharp right by a walker coming the other way) and led us all into a dead end, barely lost any distance but it meant Peter was back in front again.
From then on it was up and up and i continued walking at essentially the same pace as Peter in front, we kept on passing more and more walkers and even the odd runner (i'd been passed by two runners in the first section and was hoping that not many more would though i knew my old sparring partner Twitey would be an issue later).
A few nice runnable sections but then Bon Accord Spur got it's revenge, steep and relentless uphill i was sweating heavily and on really steep parts was putting my hands on my knees would the spur ever end and we finally hit the Razorback ???.

Finally we hit the intersection and i knocked back the offer of a lolly as i simply didn't have the energy. Unfortunately at this point Twitey caught up to me and we both pushed hard along the Razorback but eventually he broke away from me (as had Peter), and i finally made Diamantina Hut.

After 10 slices of orange and some water i did what i consider to be the finish of this run i headed off to the summit of Mount Hotham.

I then headed back (as usual one of only two to do so), which is the reason for so many pictures on this blog entry, was feeling really good so my uphill times may well be far from crash hot but i'm definitely in good shape, now if only we could race down.

Was glad to make it back to Harrietville and the Ovens River as it was still 35 in the Ovens Valley, apparently a change is coming through tonight.