Introduction

Welcome to my blog. The title originates when my primary athletic activity was competitive walking, but now that I am back to running it also includes that.

Not all content is accessible from the main page: for example, the rogaines, racewalking, and ultramarathon pages all include content that is only accessible from those pages.

Ultramarathons

Ultramarathons are any event longer than the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles / 42.195km. Standard distances for ultras are 50km, 50 miles, 100km, and 100 miles. There are also 12 hour and 24 hour track runs, and multi-day "stage races".

I have currently (September 2012) completed 30 ultramarathons, plus 1 DNF at about 66km at the Molesworth Run. Reports for most events are provided below.

See also

Rogaines

Rogaining is the sport of long distance cross-country navigation. Events can be as short as 2-3 hours or the standard 24 hours. Teamwork, endurance, competition and an appreciation for the natural environment are features of the sport. Rogaining involves both route planning and navigation between checkpoints using a variety of map types.

GN Phillips and RJ Phillips, Rogaining, 3rd ed, 2000



The two main umbrella organisations for rogaining in New Zealand are: My reports for selected events are provided below.


Hiking and Mountains

The Hiking, Trail Running, and Mountains pages are all inter-related, but with some subtle differences:
  • Hiking is not an organised race, and may include Coastal Adventures, activities in the Mountains, and hiking in other locations;
  • Trail Running covers organised events, some in the mountains, but others on local hills and trails; and
  • The Mountains category covers both events and hiking in various places that can be classed as mountains.


  • Racewalking

    Racewalking only has to meet two technical requirements:
    • no loss of contact, as judged by the human eye; and
    • the leg has to be straight from the moment of first contact until it is upright.
    More detailed rules are here.

    I'm not particularly good at racewalking, often falling foul of the straight leg rule. But I still give it a go and here are the results of my endeavours.


    Running

    This blog is primarily about my walking activities, but sometimes I do run. Here are reports for events where I have run.

    Shorter Races

    I classify events as ultramarathons, marathons, rogaines, and "shorter events". So a "shorter event" is just something that is shorter than a marathon and is not a rogaine. Consequently there's a mixed bag in here: running, racewalking, half marathons, 10k and 5k races, , etc.


    Saturday, March 10, 2012

    Marking the Trail

    The Tarawera Falls in full flow
    Ostensibly the purpose of this day was to mark the section of the Tarawera Ultramarathon course from the Tarawera Outlet to the Tarawera Falls carpark. We did do that, but it was a day of much fun and hilarity along the way.

    Paul Charteris dropped Heather, Allyson, Gerry, and me at the Tarawera Outlet, gave us instructions, and we set off along the track towards the falls. We started with ribbon markers at about 250m apart, then added large arrows where required, and started spacing the ribbons out a bit further to conserve supplies.

    A swing, hmmmm... Allyson and Heather survey
    the river.
    It was great to be able to do this section of track just to see the sights rather than at the tired end of an event. Allyson was brave enough to go for a swim in a calm section of the river, the falls were roaring with a lot more water than usual, and we generally had fun as we made our way along the track. We must have been slow though, as Paul was able to drive back around to the Falls carpark, and then come back up the track to meet us about halfway!

    Paul leads the way across a stream on a new
    section of track
    Once we'd finished marking then Paul was kind enough to drive us around the part of the 100km course that we had not seen before, and then take us to run a new section of trail leading up to the Kawerau pipe bridge.

    A good fun day, finished off with fish & chips on the beach at Matata!

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