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.


    Sunday, October 11, 2009

    Marathon #20

    After a week of wet and windy weather, the forecast for Sunday was great so I decided on Saturday to do the Wairarapa Country Marathon. The start is only an hour's drive from home so it's almost too close not to do it! I didn't realise it at the time, but this was my 20th marathon. The last time I did this marathon it was as a runner back in 2000 and it was just my second marathon.

    A sunny day with a light breeze and a backdrop of snow capped mountains, it was the perfect day to be walking in the country. There was the thundering of hooves from cows running through a paddock after milking, a pair of hares trot out on to the road in front of me, lots of docile sheep, and two World War I triplanes.

    I started at 7am with the runners, and was walking alone for most of the morning. At 25km I thought I could see someone up ahead, and 9km later I finally caught the last runner. 1.5km another runner and one of the walkers from the 6am start, then another runner, and eventually passing 6 people in total.

    I was reasonably happy with my time of 4:57:01, although I was hoping for a time 5 minutes faster for the first 30km of the race. I went through the half in 2:26:00. My 5k splits were 34:27, 34:55, 34:28, 34:27, 33:55, 35:57, 35:34, 36:54, and then 16:21 for the final 2.195km.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
    Labels: , ,

    1 comments:

    Tom said...

    Good effort Andrew. Very consistent splits and a great walking time. You finished very close to Mike Stewart who has 460+ marathons to his credit.
    Country marathons have a feel all of their own with the scenery and animals. Well done.

    October 12, 2009 at 7:55 PM

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