ultrarunning

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Ultra-Trail Australia

Date: 18 May 2019
Distance: 100km
Time: 24:42

ali_pottinger_pic

At the finish – thanks for the pic Ali Pottinger!

It is not ideal to go into an event unprepared and exhausted. Juggling too many things meant a frantic last minute finalising draft chapters of my thesis to be reviewed while we are away in order to optimise time. Trying to remember what to pack in a very short timeframe did not help the stress levels. We left Palmy at 3am on the Thursday morning of 16 May for the drive down to Wellington for our flight at 7am. Allowing only two hours for the trip, I was holding my breath that something wouldn’t happen to prevent us from making the flight in time. Like a house or some such being moved (as often happens during night time) causing a hold-up and blocking the highway for an extended period. Fortunately, we had no issues, caught the shuttle bus from the long-term parking as we stepped out of the car, and made the flight to Australia on time. Continue reading →

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Ka Waewae Tātahi o Te Awa Tupua

Date: 6 April 2019
Distance: 57km
Time: 8:22

Warm-up.
Race briefing by headlamp.
Beautiful views from early on.
Sun starting to come through.
First transition point.
Cosy kayakers on the river.
Transition point.
Gerry on his way into the Marae to top up his water bottles.
All the Marae in the area we passed.
Stil found the breeze really cold, especially on my throat and ears.
Transition point.
This little piggy went to …
Flying Fox accommodation.
Selfie time!
Transition point at 15km to go.
Fuck this shit. I’m done. At least that’s how I felt at the time.
More beautiful scenery.
Some amusing roadside scenery.
Finally at the finish, and what a great welcome we received!
A whanau celebrating at the finish.
Race bibs, and we ironically also finished in that order, event Ts and bling.

What could have been an “easy” jaunt in six to seven hours, turned into an LSD run of more than eight hours on our feet. Just as well, as that is exactly what we need in preparation for the UTA. In terms of specificity, we were well off the mark with this event, but it was a good way to force ourselves to get the time and distance in. Continue reading →

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Triple Peaks Challenge

Date: 9 March 2019
Distance: 55km
Time: 9:33

Registration on a rainy Friday night.
But a beautiful morning for the event.
Jason Larkin sporting a North Range Trio headband! Cheers bro!
Mt Erin in the distance.
The day could have been a lot different if it was really wet.
Mt Erin, we’re coming for you.
So close.
Mt Erin aid station.
Mt Kahuranaki in the distance.
Amusing signage convention to show steep downhills.
The rough section (part of the river bed) prior to the river crossing.
Tukituki River crossing.
Chillyyyy!
Transition point entertainment.
Second aid station before the climb up Mt Kahuranaki begins.
Local hero, Nick Johnston, already on his way to defend his Triple Peaks title.
Andrew Thompson finished in third place.
A lonely marshal three-quarters up the mountain.
So so steep.
Trying to go backwards to ease the pain.
Roger Jones at the aid station on top of Mt Kahuranaki.
Trig bagging.
Spotting Te Mata Peak in the distance.
Still cold, but still smiling.
Interesting sign on gate.
Te Mata Peak just visible.
Mt Erin.
Very very steep terrain.
Looking back on how far we’ve come.
Te Mata Peak where a friendly supporter/spectator offered to take our photo.
A ridiculously steep section on mountain bike tracks.
Very challenging MTB tracks on tired and sore legs.
Back in civilisation.
When you think you should have reached the finish line two kilometres ago, only to see this sign!
Just a glimpse of the finish banner by the time we got to the finish.
Prize-giving.

Covering the final few metres of this tough, gruelling run unsure of where the actual finish was, we were stopped next to a gazebo and congratulated by the organiser who was checking that we looked compos mentos. And with a sadistic grin he asked “Did I break you?”, while telling us proudly that he did break some of us. And while he is no Laz and this is not the Barkley, the course sure is tough. It seems to have become a “thing” to try to break participants and more and more events aim to do just that. Turns out, out of the 138 runners and walkers, 21 DNF which is about 7%. Continue reading →

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#dontforgettotrainnexttime – Tarawera Ultra

Date: 9 February 2019
Distance: 50km
Time: 8:48
Previous: 2015, 2016

It’s our third outing to Rotorua for the Tarawera Ultra Marathon, and I can (almost) safely say – don’t do the even numbered years! The weather is always miserable, and raining which means the course turns into a tougher-mudder in these years. 🙂 This year, again, saw a gorgeous, sunny day with little wind. It was likely a bit on the hot side for most, but being in the bush means you are mostly protected from the sun. And I’m the last person to complain about heat. 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 →