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 22, 2011

    10k at RWNZ Relay Champs

    New PB! Took 1:20 off my previous best to record 60:05 for 10k at the Racewalking NZ relay champs / Ekiden walking relay in Upper Hutt. I had done no walking training since early February, so was expecting a time about 3 minutes slower. However my running training had apparently given me the aerobic conditioning I needed to turn in a good performance.

    Time and distance recorded on my GPS.
    I was expecting the trademark painful shins to appear early in the second lap, but they never eventuated. Perhaps the muscle fascia was constantly inflamed last year and the break from walking training has given it a chance to recover? I did suffer from fairly bad stitch for a lot of the race, so if I can sort that out I might finally be able to dip under 60 minutes!

    Lap times (for 1.25km laps) were 7:37, 7:32, 7:39, 7:29, 7:23, 7:33, 7:33, 7:19; first 5km in 30:17, 2nd 5km in 29:48. My GPS recorded only 9.91km... the course was supposed to be officially measured with a wheel, so the 90m must just be GPS error.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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