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 19, 2016

    Kirikiriroa Marathon

    The inaugural running of the Kirikiriroa Marathon in Hamilton, and I was actually able to attend. Starting with a scenic lap of the Hamilton Gardens, the course then heads down river on the walking and cycling trails alongside the Waikato River. The trails themself are a very scenic place to run, in many places wending their way through bush and ferns.

    For an inaugural event this was incredibly well run; just as well as many events that have had the benefit of years of fine tuning.


    Part of the early loop through the Hamilton Gardens.

    Te Rapa Dairy Factory
    Waikato River

    One of the distance markers
    This was never going to be a fast one, with very little training under the belt: just one 22km walk 4 weeks before the event and a 32km walk 2 weeks before. Not the best preparation, but enough to get me around. But the course also turned out to be a lot harder than expected, with one walker who would normally clock 5:00-5:05 only getting 5:20 (and no faster walkers). This almost makes my time of 5:33:13 look half way reasonable!

    1 comments:

    Luke Jarmey said...

    Hi Andrew

    Just letting you know you’ve been nominated for the RunUltra Suunto Blogger Awards. You’ll soon be added to the list here: http://www.runultra.co.uk/News/October-2016/The-search-for-the-best-running-blogs-worldwide

    For more information on the awards please head over to this guide: http://www.runultra.co.uk/Articles/October-2016/Guide-to-our-RunUltraBlogger-Award-2017

    Cheers and good luck

    Luke Jarmey

    RunUltra Community Manager

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