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, April 17, 2011

    Porirua Scenic Fun Run

    A bit of a naff name for a really good tough trail run! 58:19 for 11k on trails and cross country. Pretty happy with this given a couple of much faster kms, and with my relatively low level of training.

    First 1km is flat and fast, mainly on the road and then on to an easy trail. Went through this far too fast, clocking 4:01. From there the course winds around the Whitireia Peninsular on the coastal track. The tide was high and in a couple of spots the track disappeared under water, requiring either a quick splash or a short diversion into the rough beside the track.

    After about 5km we reached the rocks... this is only a short section of a couple of hundre metres, but heaps of fun. A short climb of maybe 7 foot, run down the other side, another short climb, push on up through some scrub, then a nice downhill back to the main track.

    But then the serious climb starts: it's only 80m ascent, but in various steep climbs across largely untracked farmland, and achieved in a total distance of about 1.2km. And by now my legs were feeling fairly trashed from running much faster than I ever do in training. One final climb to the high point and turn around, and then it was generally downhill over undulating terrain.

    About one km of downhill gave a good chance to stretch my legs out, and then it was about another km to the finish.

    Results are here.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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