Maungatautiri Block

Relaxed and ready to start.

Brian said he'd like to go for a run around the block... seems fair enough, people go for a run around the block all the time. There's just one thing though... his block is 72km around Mt Maungatautiri. Invitations went out, and all the trail runners declined because road would be too hard on their bodies! So that left Brian, me, Heather, and a couple of maybes.

At the time 72km sounded like a good plan, but by the time the day rolled around I was a bit more realistic and thought 50km was a bit more likely. With a car full of food and drink we headed over the hill to Brian's, and were ready for an 8am start.

We started off well, with the first 10km ticking over comfortably under an hour. For about the first 16km we shared the road with cyclists competing in a half iron man. It was funny to watch the looks on their faces - while we were close to the start they couldn't care less, but the further out we got the more respect we seemed to get - particularly when they saw us for the second time on their loop.

At around about 18km I got to talk turkey. There was a group of about 6 or so turkeys in a driveway, with tails all fanned out, gobbling away as we approached. They stopped gobbling, so I gobbled back at them and they all started up again. This happened about three times before we were out of range. Meanwhile, Heather was still a couple of km back with the car, talking to a coach of some of the iron man athletes.

But it turned out that no long runs in the 6 weeks or so since Marton-Wanganui was not really the best training regime, and by 20km I was starting to suffer. It was getting hot on the road, and my legs were taking a pounding on the roads. At 22.3km I pulled the pin and sent Heather out to run for a bit. I sat in the car with the airconditioning on full to try and cool down, and drove another couple of km up the road to provide the next aid stop.

The promise of the open road

Brian and Heather

After about 7km it was time for me to get back on the road. I had cooled down, and the humidity also seemed to have cleared. Cloud was building as the forecast rain was visible in the distance.

A nice stretch of downhill.

At one point a paddock of cows was very interested in Brian and me: they would run along in their paddock until just ahead of us then turn to face us and watch us pass, before running ahead and doing it all again. Their game was up when we turned a 90 degree bend heading directly away from them and started down a very long straight road that disappeared into the distance. The road was at least 3km long, then dropped down into a fairly significant valley before climbing out the other side. My untrained legs were really suffering from all the downhills, and this time I stopped after about 20.7km.

Heather took over for about 10km or so, and it really started to pour. She started off with her raincoat, but it was warm and she got so wet that she decided just to run in a long sleeve top.

By the time Heather had finished, so had the rain. I was back on the road for the last few stretches of downhill to Lake Karapiro, and then on to the finish. Some rowing races were in progres as we ran past, although both Brian and I were walking all the hills. The last couple of km were dead flat, on a concrete footpath. Ordinarily I would hate concrete, but my legs were sufficiently sore that it made no difference!

All up I did 22.3 + 20.7 + 12.4 = 55.4km. Not really an ultra because it wasn't continuous, but a good training run and a good way to spend the day.