Things were all going to plan until I clicked on a link and everyth...

WARNING! This post contains insanity!

If you have been following me for a while you’ll know that I’m training to run my first marathon in June. So far things have been going well. no injuries to report and my runs are getting longer and longer. I’ve completed a 40km run, so I know I can go the distance. I just have to get faster so I’m not the last one over the finish line.

Things were ticking along. In the back of my mind the plan was to do the marathon and then train for the Tawarera 100km in February. That would be my first ultra marathon – assuming I survive the first marathon in June.

I’ve been watching videos on YouTube (as you do) about ultra marathons, learning all I can about them. Then a couple of days ago I clicked on this link and everything changed.

As it turns out there is an ultra marathon in July in Wellington. This one is 60km and it runs pretty close to where I live. I checked out the course and immediately my priorities changed. The marathon in June is now just a warmup for the ultra in July.

Now you might think that 60km is pretty easy for an ultra marathon. The distance is not that great.

Easy peasy.

But look again at the course. The course takes in the highest peaks in the hills around Wellington – pretty much all of them! In total 3km of the whole race is run on the flat, and that’s on the sand and rocks of the beach by Red Rocks and Owhiro Bay. Not so easy to walk on let alone run on.

It’s a short ultra, but it will be a hard one. Just what I need as my first step into the ultra world. It will either be fun, or it will kill me.

So tonight, instead of running my usual circuit, I changed footwear and put on my Vibram Five Fingers and headed off to try and find the trails used for the race.
I was headed for a particular part of the course called the ‘Tip Track.’ This is a notoriously steep track that runs past the city landfill (which we call the ‘tip’. Hence the name of the track.) To give you some idea of this track, my sister used it to train for climbing Mount Fiji in Japan.

For the ultra you have to run up the track to the top and then back down again. This is about 3kms (or more) of relentless uphill on a rough track.

For my run this evening, just to get to the start of it I had to run 5kms up and over another big hill on muddy tracks. This was not a big deal really.

What this run tonight was all about was trying stuff out. So I wasn’t running fast or hard. This was my first run in my Vibrams. The first run off-road for many years. And I would eventually be running in full darkness, given the time of year. So I took a couple of torches to try them out.

I was really surprised that I was quite fine running up and over the first big hill. I actually ran all the way up it without feeling like I was going to die. The light was fading quickly as I went down the other side, and at some point I lost the track and ended up bashing my way through gorse bushes to try and get down to the road.

I finally made my way down as the last light left the sky and found myself in a horse paddock – with an electric fence. So I wandered around trying to find somewhere to cross that would not see me getting the shock of my life. I eventually managed to cross over and headed for the start of the Tip Track. Mr. Garmin piped up and told me I’d just done 5km – it had taken about 45 minutes.

I thought I’d just go up the Tip Track for a bit and see what it was like. I’d never been up it before, so this was all new to me. So I started off, running up the hill knowing that at any moment I’d stop and have to walk.

1km later I was still going and still feeling strong.

So I stopped.

I was 6kms into my first trail run is shoes that I had not run in before. It was full dark and I had at least 6kms to run to get back home.

Satisfied with what I had learned so far, I turned and headed back down the hill. I found the actual track that lead back over the hill and in no time I was running up the hill towards my house.

That was odd. I’ve been out running many times and I pretty much never ran up that hill before. Now I was cruising up it at the end of 10kms like it was just a gentle slope. I guess this shows just how much fitness I have gained this year.

Now, I know that 10kms is not 60kms. And at the speed I was running several of the other competitors would have died of old age by the time I finished. But as a first run I think it was pretty good.

My knees and ankles hurt a lot. My archilies was really, really tight. But they were also like that just before the run when I walked to the supermarket. So no real drama there.

When I got home my wife asked me “How was that?”

I told her “Not bad. I got lost, went bush bashing through gorse, ran up the Tip Track, ran in the dark and nearly ran into a horse. It was fun.”

And I think that’ the key to this – it was fun!

Next time I’ll try to get out while the sun is still at work and see if I can get some photos for you to see the insanity of this course.

Oh, yes. I mentioned that this post contains insanity didn’t I?

Can you imagine anything more insane than a little old grey haired man deciding to run for 60km across some of the roughest and hilliest terrain you can encounter, before he has even completed the 42kms he was supposed to be training for?

There must be something in the water….

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