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, May 23, 2010

    Ekiden Walking Relay 2010

    Ekiden Relay, May 2010
    Trentham again entered a team in the 'B' division of the annual Wellington Scottish Athletics Ekiden Walking Relay. I walked the 10km lap in 61m:52s. This comes at the end of my off season so I wasn't in particularly good form. But my time was less than 30s slower than my PB so I was quite happy with that. A summer of ultras followed by two months of active recovery including plenty of running appears to have left me in a good position to build on.

    New club member John Roskvist led the team out on the first leg (7.195km), bringing us through in 5th position, with Race Walking Auckland's B team just 36s behind us. Viv took over from John, walking the second leg (5km). We remained in 5th position but the gap reduced slightly to 27s.

    Richard Willis walked the third leg (7.5km). Frans van Buel from Racewalking Auckland closed the gap and then slowly pulled ahead to finish 1m:11s ahead of us, dropping us into 6th place. I took over from Richard to walk the fourth leg (10km). Racewalking Auckland opened the gap further to 2m:37s, but we both gained 2 places so that Trentham was now in 4the position.

    John Ihaka walked the fifth leg (7.5km), closing the gap to Racewalking Auckland to just 7 seconds. The first seven places in the race remained unchanged. Jackie took over for the final leg (5km). Grant Peper from Racewalking Auckland was just 10s/km faster, opening the gap between the two teams to 59s. The 5th placed team, including New Zealand's current fastest walker, was just 1m:05s behind us.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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