Puffing Billy Running Festival 2024

Last weekend (October 26th - 27th, 2024) was the weekend of the Puffing Billing Running Festival, and specifically, Saturday was the day of the 5km fun run I had signed up for earlier this year.

This was one of those not-a-big-deal-but-I-feel-good-about-it types of things because I’d never really done this kind of thing before. The last time I ran in any kind of event was back in school, doing school sports or whatever, and I was always terrible at it.

I’ve been running a lot more in 2024 (last I checked in the Nike Run Club app, this is my most running-est year to date after a couple of years of not doing a whole lot), and signing up was my way of cementing my commitment to this whole thing and giving me a little something to strive for.

The festival has a fun little theme around Puffing Billy, a 100-ish-year-old steam engine that still runs as a fun little family experience around the Dandenong Ranges. It takes off at the same time as the runners, and you can see if you can beat it back (people not running can get tickets, ride along on the trip, and chill out; it seemed pretty nice). I had no illusions about beating it, given the hilliness of the track, which I was not used to. It got back 5ish minutes before me, but it worked out okay because my partner got to wave me on at the finish line. If I were to do it again, though, I reckon my goal would be to beat that train. Time to start practising some hills!

Here are a couple of thoughts from the run:

• I’m enjoying running with people. I’ve been hitting up the Parkville Park Run on weekends recently, and it’s not like I’m interacting with anyone when I’m there, but the vibe of running with a group of people is pretty fun.
• That hill in the middle of the track was cooked. I managed okay, but it was a push.
• I finished in about 32 minutes (31:54, to be exact). I used to be able to do 5km a decent chunk faster than that, so my focus now is probably to try to get that time down.

I had a pretty great day out. The weather was fantastic, the run was a good time, and the vibe of the whole event was very wholesome. I’ll be keen to do this again!