It must have been my other personality which expressed a desire for a rest day...I have a policy of not squandering a cool day in summer, and a forecast of 22 with a guarantee of being rained upon gave me a chance to do the one remaining unticked-off long run in my Cradle Mt training plan.
The Yurrebilla trail winds 54km from Belair Railway Station to Athelstone through the Greater Mount Lofty Parklands via Belair, Pony Ridge, Brownhill Creek, Carrick Hill, Waite, Eagle on the Hill, Cleland, Horsnell Gully, Norton Summit, Morialta and Black Hill. Apparently it's never more than 18km in a direct line to the CBD. Quite a lot of singletrack, and there's a hell of a lot of down and up; 1865 ascent and 2060 descent according to the SARRC Yurrebilla Trail Ultra website which also puts the run, held each September, at 56km distance. I've been in two minds about doing it because of the psychological impact of being so near, yet so far, from the city, and the fact that the trail keeps going up a hill purely in order to come back down again, which is something I hate.
http://www.sarrc.asn.au/Maps/ytrail_map.pdf
http://www.sarrc.asn.au/yurrebilla.html
Anyway, I started from home so joined the trail at the bottom end of Brownhill Creek rather than including the Belair/Brownhill Ck section which I'm pretty familiar with. And I had a full pack with all my compulsory Cradle gear - well, I won't be carrying a torch, phone or purse on the run but I will have another thermal top plus gloves and beanie. I almost wished I had brought my gloves when the rain was blowing at me across an exposed saddle on Brown Hill, but mostly this run is pretty sheltered, unlike being above the snowline in Tas.
My original plan was that this would be a hike which might not finish until dark, hence the torch, but I decided to run the first 5km across the boring suburbs, and thereafter changed the rules to: I would run anything unless it was so steep/rough that walking would be more efficient. Yurrebilla is not a fast run, by any means, and sometimes it's the descents which are just as slow as the climbs.
I almost didn't take enough water because I assumed I'd be able to fill up at Cleland but the sign in the toilets there said DO NOT DRINK so 1.5L had to last me the 30km till Norton Summit. I was helped by the discovery of some excellent blackberries in Horsnell Gully (3km descent just to come 3km back up again) and at Norton Summit I took a decent break, drank lots including powerade, and found some safety pins to hold up my sagging/soggy O-pants (which I foolishly took the drawstring out of years ago when there was more of me to fit in them).
Felt better after this knowing that it was downhill into Morialta - although even on the tracks I'm familiar with I was unsure of my footing because the pack messes with my balance. At least a full pack doesn't bounce too much. Up to and then down Moores Rd I was in the sun and getting warm (1.5L water had to last 20km this time) and when I got to Foxes Dam, in which Zara would have swum, I made my bucket hat fit its description and poured a full hatful of tannins on my head. Down down to Montacute Rd and then the one last climb up to Black Hill for which I had been saving some energy (and Zara's excellent fruitcake, which I managed not to misplace for 11 months this Christmas - but that's another story). I even detoured to check out Black Hill Summit at 457m; deeply disappointing, there's not even a trig point.
So glad that there were no more ascents, only descents, from there. The last 1.5km of singletrack down Ambers Gully past the interesting limestone "waterfall" was one of the slowest sections because it's so rough, but I knew exactly where I would finish on Gorge Rd, and about a minute after I got there, George rocked up to collect me, so it was all good. And now I feel like I have earned a proper couple of weeks of tapering!
Postmortem: actual time on my feet was 8 1/2 hours, running for just over 7 1/2 I'd estimate. So a 7km/hr average pace for an intended 12hr Cradle time is going to require about an 8km/hr running pace, because stops have to be included in the overall time, plus the pace at the beginning needs to be faster (though maybe not going up Marions Lookout) to allow for being completely buggered at the end. The track probably won't be as rough as today - less rocks and gravel but more tree roots, and climb won't be worse, from what I remember, though it's hard to tell from looking at a map with 40m contours. So, the worst-case scenario is being knee-deep in mud, which doesn't seem that likely at the minute...