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, September 10, 2011

    Marton-Wanganui Relay

    trentham
    Had a fantastic walk at the Marton-Wanganui relay. I race walked the Trentham United "Gold" walking team into first place at the end of the first two legs. The team finished 2nd, in a total time of 7:03:23 for the 66.3km. This is the first year that the team has made the podium!

    As with the previous three years, I walked the first two legs for the team before continuing on to complete the whole event. I was pleased with the state of my shins over the first 5km - while they did tighten up, I didn't get the searing pain of previous years and consequently was able to keep a quicker pace.

    The second leg starts with a good climb and then has a long downhill into the Turakina Valley. Brian Prescott was running alongside me up the hill and then we were caught by Phil Grimmet from the Scottish walking team. We continued as a group down the hill, chatting as we went. I was expecting that the lead three teams were well ahead, but part way down the hill the group of three appeared about 200m ahead of us. We picked up the pace and closed in quickly. Vanessa Lowl from Taranaki Racewalkers moved from 3rd into 1st, and my group of three passed the other two. We continued to close on Vanessa and I moved in to sit behind her left shoulder. I was there for a few minutes and then when I judged that there was about 2km to the end of the leg I made my move. I picked up the pace to move away from both Vanessa and Phil. I slowed a bit on the rise into the changeover, but still managed to tag our next walker (Jackie) with perhaps a 30m lead on the next team.


    Somewhat pardoxically, I seem to be significantly faster this year with almost no walking training. I stopped walk training in early February, and since then my only walking has been setting a 10km PB at the RWNZ Relay Champs in May, Trentham's King of the Mountain in July, and a 7km training walk earlier this week. Inspite of that limited training, I walked my fastest time over the last four years. In 2008 and 2009 I recorded 1h52, in 2010 I recorded 1h56, and this year I recorded 1h46.

    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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