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Hacket Track, Whispering falls, and Chromite Mine loop

Date: 24 February
Distance: 11.6km
Time: 2:22

A few weeks back Wouna found a notice about an upcoming textile art exhibition and competition (the Changing Threads National Contemporary Textile Fibre Art Awards) that was open for entries, so she decided to give it a go and entered a couple of her large patchwork-style fabric portraits. Initial digital entries were submitted, from which one of her pieces made it through to the shortlist for the exhibition. This required couriering the artwork down to Nelson’s Refinery ArtSpace, where the exhibition was held. And then came the nail biting wait to hear if she made the finals.

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Kaitoke to Holdsworth campsite via the valleys

Date: 20-21 February

Distance: 40.5km (or 36km according to the guide books)

Tramping or running or fast-packing parts of the Tararua Ranges means you often need someone else to help with transport. There are various loop options, but a lot of the better known routes, like the Southern Crossing, Northern Crossing or the S-K (Schormann to Kaitoke) are all point-to-point. With these point-to-point routes you can potentially arrange with mates where each of you park at the trail head on either side, and meet somewhere along the route for a key swop, or you can leave a car at each end and walk together. Or simply get someone to drop you off, and/or pick you up. Either way, it is a bit of a performance to get it all sorted and means you often have to allow extra time for travelling.

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Jumbo-Holdsworth Trail Race – marshalling at Holdsworth trig

29-30 January

The weeks before and after, including the event itself flew by in a blur. As a result I do not have notes of any kind about the outing and only a single photo from Powell Hut to remind me of the adventure.

What I do remember is that we collected the emergency equipment from the Holdsworth campsite warden at around 2pm, and saw Chris S in the carpark who was on the mountain the previous night when the southerly came though dusting Mt Holdsworth with snow. He mentioned it was freezing up at the tops. We starting walking at about 2:30pm.

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Blue Range Hut blues

Date: 25 January 2021
Distance: 8km out-and-back
Time: 1:45 going up | 1:30 going down

An invitation came along for a walk up to a hut, which was the perfect opportunity to get my bum off of the chair and do something physical for a change. To be fair, we have started jogging 4km most days of the week for the past month or so to try and get back into some form of fitness and routine. It has been a hard slog, and sometimes a real challenge just to cover those 4km, but we have been going reasonably steady for the past month.

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24-Hour isolation challenge

Date: 24-25 April 2020
Time: 24 hours
Distance: 103km

Passing the supportive messages written by our neighbours provided a boost on each lap.
Paul’s sound system providing some good vibes.
Loving the drawings!
Living out of town makes for a laid-back, rural running experience.
Heading into the sunset. 🙂
Our aid station.
Late afternoon shadows.
Thanks to the tree-rich area large parts of the course is in shadow much of the day.
Always a highlight to finish a fifth lap.
Sunset silhouette.
Nothing better than hearty soup on a long run!
Midnight – one third down. Looking a little tired.
As we all know, ultra-running is basically an extended food-fest.
A very welcome dawn.
Still well-stocked, many hours down.
Counting laps. 1 lap. = 1.5k.
A Strava view of our aid station, and the corner in the middle of our 750m stretch, which we passed 136 times in 24-hours.
A hero’s finish, with Chariots of Fire on the boombox. Fantastic support by our lovely neighbours, Paul, Katy and the girls
These shoes were way past their sell-by date at the beginning of April. Yet, I still added more that 400 km to them in the past 25 days. Probably a physio’s nightmare, looking at the imbalances.

If anyone told me a few years ago that I would do a 100km training run, without it being an official event, I would have said, dream on. Not only is this physically a huge challenge, but also mentally. Getting your head around that distance takes some mind gymnastics. Getting your head around doing it outside of the support, comfort and camaraderie of others in an event, takes extra strong brain gymnastics. Continue reading →