Date: 7 September
Distance: 42.2km
Time: 6:32

Life is a funny ol’ thing. You can make plans all you like, but it will dance in the direction it wants to regardless of your plans. This happens all the time, and deja vu kicked in when I thought about the previous time I tried to study full time and make plans to do big runs. In foresight one’s plans and goals line up. Everything seems doable. In fact, having a good physical regime is necessary when stress-levels are high, so I try not to skimp on running, even though the complementary activities (foam rolling, stretching, strengthening) always falls by the wayside. But I digress.

In 2019 I was in the final throes of a PhD, but still attempted to run a 21km event the day before handing in. It was a disaster. My mind couldn’t cope with all the stress, I had the mother of all migraines, and the run was unpleasant to put it mildly. This event was another one of those (which ones weren’t?) where we lined up not ready. Not even remotely ready. Worse than ever before. And it will no doubt happen again. In fact, in a week’s time we want to do the Hatuma half marathon, and will be in no better place than now. At least the stress of the studies will be much less.

Both Gerry and I decided to enrol into the Master of Design degree, full time, through UCOL. It is a year and a half course, which we could fortunately stretch out for two more months. I started off with an idea of what I wanted to do, before having a 180 degree change of heart a few months into the study. Gerry’s situation was even worse, but he finally found his way and settled on the exact output to complete his degree in the latter half of last year. Although theoretically we weren’t much behind schedule, we also weren’t ahead of schedule. And knowing that we had a six-week family visit early in the year, we should have been further along. Adding to that another almost two-week Oz work trip, it meant we had two months less to dedicate to studies.

Last year we could still manage to train a decent amount. Not nearly enough to do our planned 100 mile event in December, but enough to get us through the 50km Tekapo run in September. Things unfortunately went a bit pear-shaped from there. I had ten weeks to complete all the practical work for the end of year’s exhibition (admittedly I perhaps went a bit overboard with some lofty goals) which resulted in not much running. Adding to that getting COVID towards the end of November, which set me back six weeks, including the dreaded ‘cough cold’. My system took a knock, and I couldn’t run at all due to feeling bleh, but also lack of any aerobic capacity/capability. We had to give up on the 100 miler, and after covering a pathetic 83 kilometres all up between mid-September and the end of the year, we started over in January and jog-walked 103km. Not that 26km/week is anything to rave about, but it is better than nothing. Which is exactly what we did in February. Nothing. Travelling halfway around the world and spending time with family, meant no running or walking at all (no excuses, just laziness). Starting again in March we covered 169km. In April we did 197km, and things looked up again. But in May we dropped back to 134km. June (214km) and July (216km) looked promising, but then August rolled around, and being the last month to finish off all the work (dissertation and exhibition) for the Masters meant we managed only 161km (jogged about 90km and walked the rest), which is quite impressive thinking back at everything we had to fit in. But is was not nearly enough.

To put it in perspective; for a marathon I like to run about 65-70km per week for the two to three months leading up to a marathon. It just makes the distance easier and far more enjoyable. Of course we weren’t nearly doing that, which placed us in a bad position to attempt a marathon. But, we have entered the Old Ghost 85km event (22 February 2025), and doing long runs are important. Also, if we didn’t do this event (or the Taniwha which we’ve done before), we would have lost the credit we had with Total Sport. $250 is not the kind of money we can simply throw away, so the only option was to just suffer through it. 

And suffered I did. The first 10km went okay, and I even managed to run four of those in under a seven minute pace. This is the part that runs from the Kinloch domain making a short loop through the village, followed by a lollipop (out-and-back stretch with a big loop at the far end) on the Whangamata Stream Track, before heading onto the Great Lake Trail to follow the new Otaketake Track (it looked quite established to me) to Kawakawa Road. This is the highest point on the course at 600m altitude. 

At only about 5km in, I developed a hotspot on my foot below my big toe. Five kilometres further and I had a hotspot on the pinky toe of my other foot. I’m not prone to blisters, so wasn’t sure what was going on. Perhaps my gait or running style changed since we walk as much as we jog of late? Or perhaps I was just feeling sorry for myself and trying to find excuses for going so slow. Regardless, I chose to ignore it. At the end the pinky toe settled and nothing happened, while the other foot had a huge bloody (blimmen!) blister.

The lovely smell of someone’s fireplace was in the air once we reached the start of the Great Lake Trail. A few kilometres further this was replaced by the smell of death. Hedgehog? After a short stint in the trapping world, the smell is immediately recognisable as a dead animal in or near a trap. This was more or less also my limit in terms of the distance I was capable of achieving. But we came for 42.2km and not 15km, so on we pushed.

I was surprised at how runnable the course is, even for me. It is an off-road event, not a trail run, so very easy underfoot. Plus, we ran on bike tracks, making it well groomed and smooth going, apart from the small bumps that are usually found on bike tracks. If only I was a little bit fitter, this could have been an enjoyable outing. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable – it was just really hard work not being fit and strong enough to cover 42km. The hills are super gradual and easy (elevation of about 300 metres over a 10km stretch. The second hill was a bit steeper), which is also shown by the winning time of 2:48.

The weather was almost perfect – apart from the breeze at the top, there was no wind, 11 degrees at the start, and overcast, so we donned a double layer of t-shits and polyprops to start with. It was cool, but not cold, and soon Gerry had to take off his vest. All was going great temperature wise, until the wind picked up near the top. As we were approaching the highest point, the breeze became quite cold and by the time we hit the road section, Gerry’s hands were numb from the cold. He was soaking wet from sweating and coupled with the breeze, he got cold very quickly. About a kilometre is run on this road before turning off back onto trails to run next to the road for a few hundred metres, until we got back on the road for the last couple hundred metres on-road. 

Turning back onto the track and following it for a few hundred metres, we reached the second aid station at the Orakau car park at the halfway mark. At the halfway aid station we filled up my two and Gerry’s one water bottles with electrolytes and water, shared one tiny piece of banana (they were still meant to cut more) and had a few crisps, before heading off. After a few hundred metres, we reached the loo where I popped in while Gerry put on his arm warmers and gloves. This made a world of difference in his overall temperature, and he looked comfortable again.

Speaking of aid stations; In my mind’s eye I anticipated something quite different and more elaborate, than what was there. When I read ‘Water, electrolyte drink, lollies and chips’, I saw in my mind’s eye gazebos with bunting, balloons, ribbons, cheerful volunteers in costumes, and loud music to keep the party going. Don’t ask me why.

But all going well in the beginning, and moving quicker than I thought I could, we ran past the first aid station at 8km, thinking it was an extra one with water only, as they sometimes do at events. It looked small, and me not studying the map or course description beforehand, I thought the first aid station would be further along. As I said, I imagined something far more elaborate and festive, so obviously this could not be it. With the second aid station only at about 21km, Gerry ran out of drinks shortly before, but I still had enough so he could sip some of mine. 

When we saw there would be three aid stations on the course, we decided to leave our 2 litre reservoirs, and rely only on the two small bottles in front of the hydration vest. This meant one litre for each of us for roughly every 10km. Unfortunately Gerry’s one bottle was leaking, so he had to finish it off quickly. I despise the small silicon bottles and always use normal plastic water or juice bottles. They are far cheaper, I don’t feel sorry for them, they can’t puncture, and they don’t leak. It just makes life easier. 

From around half way, I was well and trudy buggered. I found it hard to think how I would make it to the finish line. For the most part we were basically on our own, but saw the occasional other runner or walker out on the course. We also had Pat and Liz within earshot the whole way. But being in the bush you don’t always see other runners even though they are only a few metres ahead or behind.

Everything was sore by then and I could not wait for it to be over. The other weird thing that happened on this event was that in my mind I was ahead of the actual kilometres the whole way! That is so demoralising – thinking you are at 5km when you are only at 4km. Or thinking you only have 3km to go when you have 4km to go. Add to that the permanent track distance marker that reads 1km to Kinloch, when it is still more than 2km to the domain and finish of the event.

Nina waited for us near the finish, and we all sat drinking beer through prize-giving which we made just in time as they were announcing the winners. Unforuntately, there were no more sausage sizzles which is always a bit frustrating when you are slow for whatever reason, and the organisers start packing up. We obviously also missed out on all the minor spot prizes that were handed out as runners arrived at the finish. 

Back at the bach, we showered, had something to eat before driving home. We were not out of the woods yet with regards to the degree, and still had things to finalise before the external assessments.

A huge thank you to Nina for offering us accommodation right next to the start/finish. What a treat to roll out of bed and be at the start.

Exhausted and sore, we arrived home at about 8pm, had tea and went to bed. The physical exhaustion made for a nice change when one’s brain doesn’t want to think anymore. I’m glad we could manage to do this, regardless of the lack of training and fitness, and who knows, maybe it we’re fit again one day, might go back and claim that sausage sizzle. 😉