Me and my germs listening to Talk Ultra in the lounge at 3am. Wild!

I’m at home, by myself, on a beautiful day, with gifted garlic soup heating up in the kitchen. Life is grand. The only blight is the cold sitting like a small elephant on my nose. For the last few months my colleagues and friends have fallen like flies with loathsome lurgies but I’d become complacent. Seems like I don’t get sick. Must be all that healthy running. Then Wednesday’s run felt unusually flat, and it went downhill from there.

The silver lining is that I get to lie in the lounge and type delirious ramblings on to the internet. It’s been a little quiet blog-wise lately, mainly because I took some down time after Ultra-Trail Des Cagous (had a blast and the race report is up at Backcountry Runner, if you missed it). Recovery actually happened fast thanks to the relatively slow pace and soft surface – although 4 or 5 toenails are still MIA. But I then embraced laziness for its own sake, and sleep-ins and weight gain aren’t terribly exciting to read about. (On the latter: I don’t think my innovative high fat, high carb diet has a big future, but you’ve got to test these things.)

I don’t have specific races planned yet and reluctantly restrained myself from the Kepler entry fray due to logistics/budget. But I’m enjoying regular expeditions again. A couple of weeks ago, Ange and I abandoned our offspring and tested out a Kaimai route she’d wondered about – up on to the ridge, along the North-South track and down Thompson’s track.

Well, it got a big tick for adventure, and a minor cross for being less runnable than predicted. The ascent was fine, gravelly and straightforward. We paused at the top enjoying the view and the peace. Some nearby mystery hunters seemed to like it too. Turning right across the ridge, we hit some rugged overgrown terrain. With the per-kilometre pace sitting around 30 minutes, you’d probably call it a tramp not a run. Cold too, despite the fine day. The bush had that feeling that nothing ever really dries out.

Mums on the run! There’s a waterfall behind us, promise.

Checking out the view – one of the benefits of running along a ridge.

Ange takes on a fun rocky part

Ladders, even!

Rather nice..

We found a good old-school hut, and wrote in the book. It was a little tricky finding the way back down again once we came out of the North-South track up top, but we got there eventually. Slip detouring added some extra road, so we were more than happy to get back to the car, clocking a mere 5 hours of adventure in total. Lots of fun. More please!

It turns out my comment about not entering any ultras for at least two months after the NZ 100k champs was a complete lie. Sorry, limbs. Encore une fois? (Wow, sudden late ’90s dance music flashback.)

For anyone who missed it, my 100k race report is over at Backcountry Runner. Short version: it went well, despite an overenthusiastic start. I ran 2k 50 times and got a PB and a cup. Also a drink bottle with a fabric handle, which Alba declared the best prize of all.

Since then, I’ve been a bit droopy and done not much. The hundy smashed my quads and energy reserves a lot more than Tarawera, maybe due to the surface, the speed and the extra 30k. I keep getting cajoling emails from the High50 Vertical Challenge who can’t comprehend my slackness, saying they see that I haven’t updated my Vertical Challenge log for some time now and what am I, some kind of crybaby flatlander wimp? The body’s creeping back into action though. I’m going to be a pacer for the first time at Huntly Half on Sunday and am more nervous about that than I would be taking part (responsibility!)

Also, I have been invited to an international race, which happens in three weeks. I’m quite excited about this.

The event is the Ultra-Trail Des Cagous in New Caledonia on June 7th – ‘a pedestrian running of lowmountain range in semi autonomy organized by Nouvelle-Caledonie Aventure’. Take a moment and read Ruby’s report of the 53k version from last year, which she carved up as per usual despite running 7k extra and basically having to ski. This year Ruby is preparing to smash UTMB instead, sensibly forgoing the UTDC jaunt. Thus, I get to carry the torch, with trepidation and gratitude. It looks fairly epic. Jungle running in a new country!

I’m used to being a tortoise, not a lièvre

Aspects of the description are slightly unnerving:

‘Every competitor can be submitted to a dope test, hanging and upon the arrival of the event.’ I’m fine with a drug test, but not sure about the hanging.. 

Anyway, it should be a grand adventure. I have an excuse to scatter arbitrary school French phrases around with abandon. There’s no time to train as such, so I’ll be going directly from recovery into taper. The level of elevation gain is new. I’m not going in completely green though – I did Cambridge Cross Country on Saturday, which had 4 metres, so it’s only another 3646 than that.

Deluded? Never! I’m off to the doctor today to be certified of sound body and mind. Wish me bonne chance.

“What’s next for you?”, asked everyone after Tarawera.

5k at Parkrun. After doing 74, 5k is fun but lung-busting.

Aside from the glib responses (Sleep! Food! Basking in goal-completion-mode before stressing about something else!), I didn’t know at the time. With characteristic vagueness – let’s call it clarity of focus – I just didn’t want to look past Tarawera beforehand. So that all went fine, but the upshot was three weeks of umming and ahing. TNF Australia 100k? Hillary? Rotorua Marathon? T42? NZ 100km championships? All good contenders for different reasons. TNF would be brilliant but I’d like to plan ahead for it. The Hillary I would have loved to try and almost did but couldn’t quite swing the childcare/time away from home. Rotorua? There’s a certain pace-pressure in a road marathon which didn’t quite gel for me (one day though). T42 was a very strong possibility, being close to home with cool people at it, and a nice surface to run on. But for some reason the 100k champs got a little hook in my mind that wouldn’t let go. So the answer is, Christchurch on April 27th, for 50 x 2k laps of Hagley Park. That looks something like this:

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

See? No problem.

As you can see, I’m working on the optimism. I’m not entirely sure why that was the choice, given my persistently stubborn achilles and the fact that I basically love trail running, but the format intrigues me. Also, there’s always been a reason I can’t do the champs for the last three years, but this year I feel like seizing the chance to try it out. It’ll be a different kind of adventure.

Note to self: signing up for Mal’s Vertical Challenge while tapering, in Hamilton, for a flat ultramarathon, is not going to cover you in glory. Oh well, it’s for a good cause. Better start saving now. There’s still plenty of time to come and join me in my barely-undulating shame.

But what shall I wear?

Contrary to many, I find trail much more forgiving than road in a shoe sense. I can wear anything on the average trail, ideally Spyridon FiveFingers. Extended road, however, is a bit of an unknown. Champs like Wayne Botha can do the barefoot/minimal long distance thing on a hard surface, but I’m not confident enough at this point.

Over the last few weeks I’ve tried out every pair of shoes I own on a long run to see if anything comes up tops but nothing really helped. (Anyone would think it’s the tendons themselves that are the problem.) So the approach will be: take 5 pairs of shoes to ChCh for potential swapping, and rely on optimism/ adrenaline. Wish me luck.

Trying out a long road run

Lap dancing

As far as preparing the brain, I’ve been doing a few lap-tastic runs. Lake Ngaroto is a classic one to do three weeks out, and that session went pretty well. It was a slight cop-out in terms of surface though, being mainly quite soft.

I also headed to Ruakura for the good old club champs loop which went well until the achilles hurt, but was still sobering in that I’d be doing another 9 10ks.

Angry bird

Taitua Arboretum makes a pleasant set of laps, complete with toilets and water, and many chickens. (Why did the chicken cross the path? Because he apparently didn’t see the runner hobbling powering towards him. Sorry chicken).

Graham Dudfield’s speed sessions with the Hawks have started again, which I love. There’s a big mob of great people and the endorphins are a buzz, completely different to what you get running for several hours. Last Tuesday we ran reps of 500m around the lake and swallowed midges as the moon got eaten by the eclipse.

Five more sleeps till the hundred though, so for now it’s just low-key running. Time for resting, massages and optimism. Down time is on the cards after this one, whatever happens, with the aim of being all gung-ho and ‘BRING IT ON’ and uninjured next time an event happens. I’m still looking forward to it though. So that’s what’s next.