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.


    Friday, January 1, 2010

    The Mountain That Wasn't: Mount Lowry

    Northern Rata
    Mt Lowry lies in a low range of hills behind Eastbourne on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour. The weather was forecast to be lovely and sunny, but with strong winds, so a walk in the hills (under the cover of bush) seemed like a good idea.

    A steep climb from Ferry Rd to attain the ridgeline and then along to the Mt Lowry lookout. From the map it was apparent that this was not the summit of Mt Lowry, so I decided that on the way back we would do a small deviation and visit the true summit.

    But before that we needed to push on and do what we were here to do: northwards to Wainuiomata Hill Rd. We reached the lookout over the road in 1h:42min. The posted time was 2h30min.

    Back along the track we found a suitable spot for some lunch, and after that we returned to the Mt Lowry lookout. According to the map I expected to travel about 200m along a track to the south east, passing the junction with a track that dropped east into Wainuiomata. The summit itself should then be offtrack through the bush to the west.

    James and Richard point at the pipe marking Mt Lowry
    The map was wrong. There was no track junction, and once we had travelled the requisite amount of distance we discovered a small piece of pipe pointing up out of the track. From that point there was nowhere higher to go. We had found Mount Lowry, all 373m of it.

    A few photos, then back down to the Ferry Rd track and the car, followed by gelato in Eastbourne.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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