Off-road running

by

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 →

by

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 →

by

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 →

by

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 →

by

We’ve Gone Nuts – Tasmania’s 101km adventure run

Date: 3 March 2018
Distance: 101km
Time: 20:56.25

When a 100km event allows 28 hours (the norm being 20 hours), heed the warning sign. For some reason, I thought this event was flattish and not too technical. Not sure how I got that idea in my head, but that was what my head was willing to cope with. With a massively long cut-off time, you could potentially walk the whole way and still make it. It would be a great way to lure newbie ultra-runners (and allow walkers) into this sort of distance. The event terrain in a nutshell, as described by the organisers – “Tasmania’s Gone Nuts 101 Adventure Run will commence on one of Tasmania’s most recognised and visited icons, The Nut, at Stanley, in Tasmania’s North West corner. The race will hug coastline, climb through Rocky Cape National Park and traverse rugged coastal bush and calming temperate rainforest. You will be challenged by diverse landscapes, encounter native wildlife and birds, and witness some of the most spectacular coastlines imaginable. In this part of the world, rolling green farmland drops over cliffs into the pristine waters of Bass Strait. The beaches are also as diverse as they are unique, with sections of long white sandy beaches, small crescent shaped bays and rugged rocky bays formed by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago.” Sounds nice, eh? Unfortunately, I apparently chose to ignore words like “cliffs”, “rugged rocky”, “climb”, and “rugged coastal bush”. Continue reading →