Author: Wouna le Roux

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Hauraki Hundee – Trail Trilogy

Date: 16 September 2018
Time: 15:49.32
Distance: 100km (we measured 107.6km)

 

Pretending to nap behind the registration desk.
Race briefing at 12:45am.
And so it begins. Already tired from lack of sleep, but the 100km awaits.
Too dark to take photos, so this was the last one for the next five hours.
Me, Evander (?) and Elee (the tail-end Charles on the bike).
Lots and lots of flat gravel tracks.
Selfie-time.
Hedgehog scull.
The Hauraki Rail Trail must be the flattest track in the country.
One of the organisers ran in to chat to Elee and then joined us on the way back to his spot.
The first “hill” on the course going over the bridge.
About 700 metres long.
The Kopu aid station.
One of many similar bridges in the section between Kopu and Paeroa.
Team le Roux pic, thanks to Evander.
More than 50kms done, but a lot still ahead.
A few of these garden chairs were attached to trees in this section. 🙂
The turkeys in the front. Love their gobble sound. It always gives me a chuckle.
Passing under one of the roads.
Near Paeroa.
Running through Paeroa. We’ve driven through the town a few times in the past – never thought we’d be running through here as part of a hundee.
One of the road crossings in Paeroa.
Paeroa aid station, which is also the start of the half marathon.
Finally we reached the Karangahake Gorge which is the most scenic part of the course.
Just soldering on to the finish.
Some event signage en route.
On our way to the 1km long tunnel. The exit of the tunnel is just a tiny white dot.
Was it not for the lack of sleep, cold air in the tunnel and my tired body, the tunnel might have been quite enjoyable.
The four of us (Gerry, Evander, Elee and me) were within shouting distance for at least 99% of the course.
Jog time. As the kilometres passed it was getting harder and harder to start running after our walk breaks.
Great to see these two again, and they even “organised” a duck for our amusement (just peeking around the corner at the left of the bridge).
The final aid station.
Much more variety in the last part of the course.
Hitting a sheltered patch.
At long last we reached Waihi.
And got company on the road.
Cute little girls mimicking the Hauraki Rail Trail sign, showing us the way.
So tired, but so relieved to have made it to the finish.

As we were driving up to Thames on Friday morning, the thought of wanting to attempt a 100km run on the tiny amount of training we’ve done the past five months, was not something my mind was willing to deal with. It just ignored the prospect and pretended it wasn’t happening. Only after a good few kilometres into the race did it start to sink in that I was totally and utterly buggered. Continue reading →

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Woodville to Wharite Peak (and back)

Date: 1 September 2018
Distance: 28km (14km one way)
Time: 4:22 (approx)

At the start of the walk at the i-Site – just the two of us.
Not sure whether to wear a windproof jacket or a warm jacket, Gerry stopped to swop his top layers.
The sea of orange shirts up ahead.
Wharite Peak covered in a thick cloud.
Soon the orange snake were behind us, as well as ahead of us.
Young and old came out to support.
Early on the gravel road the gradient was still manageable.
Until we started to climb considerably.
The windfarm remains quite a sight from up here.
Up, up, up.
The snow-covered Mt Ruapehu in the hazy distance.
Almost there!
Finally at the trig.
Running downhill is so much easier.
Tracey in the middle, only a few hundred metres from the top.
Going down is fun, until afterwards when your quads are minced.
A narrow bridge we all had to cross on the way out of town, which was insanely busy.

We recently found out about a young Palmerston North woman by the name of Tracey, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a couple of years ago. She received a grant from the Mastering Mountains charitable trust to walk the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, and is currently in training by Massey Sport and Exercise student Arbie Hong. In an attempt to raise money for the MS charity, as well as creating awareness about the illness, she organised the Woodville to Wharite Peak walk. Not only did she organise the walk, but also participated to see how she would manage and ended up walking the full 14km up to the peak in only 3.5 hours. With Woodville at about 92 metres above sea level and Wharite Peak at 920 metres, it is a tough uphill and no easy feat. Continue reading →

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Catchment Ultra recce

Date: 22 June 2018
Distance: 50km
Time: 9:08

There was a time in my life when I thought it was pure madness to run anything further than 27km by yourself in a training run. It already took some brain gymnastics to run anything further than a 21km and not get a medal. But to run ultras you have to also do long training runs and while training for a 5-day stage race back in 2008, we finally got our heads around 23+km training sessions – without medals! We have always tried to do our extra-long-runs (e.g. further than 27km) at events. Events to me is not necessarily a “race”, but often just a LSD training run with the added bonus of having aid stations along the way. Continue reading →

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Ring of Fire (ROF) Volcanic Ultra

Date: 7 April 2018
Distance: 72km (we measured 76km)
Time: 18:15

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Hundreds of headlamps snaking up the mountainside.

Forty-five hours after we finished the most gruelling event we’ve ever done, and I’m still at a loss for words. Not even a few glasses of the best kiwi wine could help get the creative juices flowing. So here I am, wondering what to make of it all and where to start.

When I first caught wind of this new event on the calendar, I was intrigued. Not just because circumnavigating the mountain in one go has been on our to-do list for the past seven years, but also because the acronym “rof” is actually a word in my home language that loosely translates to “rough”. I thought this was a very apt description for an event of this calibre, and it obviously sparked my interest. Continue reading →

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Kohitere trig track

Date: 25 March 2018
Distance: 15.5km
Time: 2:10

A glorious early morning start.
Mist in the valleys and tree tops.
The map of the course. We went all the way to Gladstone Road and back.
The only mud on the track.
Zigzagging up the cycle path.
At last a bit of down hill.
Gerry having a ball on the downhill.
Gerry and Nina heading uphill.
Some good viewpoints: Lake Horowhenua and Levin down below.
The track is mostly in the forest, protected from wind, rain and sun.
Shortly before we reached Gladstone Road, we crossed this scenic stream.
The final bit of downhill on the 4WD track.
We started seeing more runners and walkers on the way back.

Is it not funny how one always neglects your backyard? And I’m not talking about the weeds that are now thriving where once there was a productive and prolific vege garden behind our house. I’m talking about running trails and tracks that are so close that you always save them for another day. Continue reading →