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.


    Saturday, July 23, 2011

    King of the Mountain Walk

    trentham
    This is an open handicap race, with the slowest away first and the fastest last. The winners are the first female and first male across the line.

    This year I was second to last away, with the fastest person (Stuart) just 15s behind me. He had caught me within about 300m, so my chance of winning rested in part on who was stronger on the hills. The first 2k of the race are essentially flat, and followed by 2.2km of hill climb. At the end of the flat section I had still not caught anyone, and Stuart was now about 75s ahead. The next kilometre brought almost the entire field into sight, with everyone starting to bunch up nicely. With about 500m to go I started to catch and pass people, but ultimately could only manage 10th out of 16, although I was just 57s behind Stuart who was 1st male and 3rd overall. My elapsed time for the 4.2km was 27:13, a good margin faster than last year.

    13 people were within a range of 1:27, so as the handicapper for the race I'm pretty happy with that.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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