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 26, 2009

    Field Hut / Table Top / Dennan

    An early spring storm blew through on Thursday, leaving behind a reasonable quantity of snow on the ranges. I entertained the thought of heading up alone on Friday, but Jan suggested we both go up on Saturday.

    It was a reasonably relaxed start with us not leaving the car at Otaki Forks until about 9:20am. No speed records were set on this one, but we made our way steadily up to Field Hut. Once there we stopped for our first lunch and put on some dry base layers for heading up to the tops.

    Snowball 4P9260055
    The first remnants of snow were encountered as we neared Table Top. We stopped and tried some posed snowball throwing shots. Then it was a bit further on to Table Top and more posed photos.

    P9260079P9260078

    Otaki River
    The main range looked spectacular, although it too only had remnants of snow remaining. We pushed on up to Dennan - it looks like a steep and gnarly climb from Table Top, but in reality is quite reasonable.

    Then it was back down to Field Hut where we stopped for a second lunch. Then back on down to the car. Very pleasant in the afternoon sun, only spoiled by recent work on the track that had changed it from a track to a gravelled footpath.





    Dennan Map
    Photos available on Flickr.
    Posted by Andrew Shelley
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