We are designed to run (a Kepler Challenge Race Report)

The evolution gods built the human body to run. It is the reason we have such large butts and those long powerful leg muscles. The evolution scientist say it was so we could run for a “long” period of time and get ahead of our prey. Our body’s did not evolve to  bike, kayak or swim (though we can swim it ok, we will lose any race against a seal, and it is a “learned” activity, not something that comes by instinct), so I decided to do as the evolution gods intended and run.

Now I am not sure what those evolution scientist regard as a “long” period, but some how I think that 60Km over a mountain was taking this a bit far, but I suppose by doing it I have proved that they are right.

The kepler is not just a 60Km ultra marathon, no this is a race of two half’s, the first part is a climb over a mountain ascending almost 2000 metres in total and then the secound half is a mind over matter endurance test against a never ending bush run where you just don’t know how far you have actually traveled until suddenly a aid station appears out of the bush. Every single racer goes in knowing that up until 50Km there is no way out other than by Helicopter, everyone knows that they “have” to finish, and out of the 400 participants there was only 2 that did not complete for what ever reason.

After having really bad downpour 2 days prior to the race, the race day dawned fine and clear. I was up at 4.30, I’d eaten my breakfast the night before, knowing that I was unlikely to be able to eat much in the morning. I still choked down my honey bagel and was dressed and ready to leave fairly quickly. Surprisingly I had had a fairly decent nights sleep and was fairly calm that morning. I normally go quite and internalise before a race, I just become menatally focused on what is to come.

We drove over to the start, it was still fairly dark and Te anau seemed the busiest I had seen it since I was there. It was about a 5 min walk down to the start line, and everyone seemed fairly jovial, after checking in and having my traditional tolilet stop I had about 10min to wait. There were expected times to stand in, I honestly didn’t have the faintest idea how long this run would take me, but I was picking 8 – 10+ hrs, so I stood around the 9hr mark. Had a nervous chat (as you do) with a couple of people around me and then the orange gun went (I didn’t get to see the Organge gun as I was at the back, would rather like to know what it actaully is). We did the slow shuffle out of the start, and got into a bit of a jog untill we came to a stop as the track got narrower. Saw Rachel at about this point and gave her a wave. Than we were moving again. The first part was 5Km through the bush. Everyone was jog fairly slowly, in parts through the bush you could see sun rising over the lake. After about 30 min we got to the first of the aid stations, I grabbed some water, I had half a bladder full of water, but thought I might as well grab some while I was their in case I ran out on the way to Luxmore, and then it was climbing and climbing and more climbing. People around (me included) started power walking the climbs and then joging the flater bits, but as we got higher there was no jogging the easy bits.

My HR plan to keep in under 160 on this climb went out the window, it kept on going up to 165, and I was only walking and couldn’t go much slower, I wasn’t stopping to rest no matter what so I just kept on going. Eventually after about a hour of climbing we cleared the bush line, that was what I had been waiting for. It flattened out a bit here and we could start jogging in places. It was fairly cold along the top, and my lungs start screaming at me when I tried to run. I grabed my inhaler, took a couple of puffs, and after about 5 -10 min of walking (Though I did have to start running for the pictures ) I came right.

Out of the bush line heading to Luxmore

Then we were at luxmore, I filled up my water bottle here, though I think I still had a decent amount in my bladder. Had my gear checked, put on my rain coat because it was chilly up there, tried to find the toilet but after been told it was around the corner and couldn’t be bothered going back (it could wait to the next shelter ) I was off, look at my watch 1.58 I was fairly happy with that.

Now you think you got to luxmore, you have most of the climbing done, I know I had seen the profile, I knew there was a lot more climbing to go, but the climb to Luxmore it turned out was the easy bit. The next stage things got hard. We kept on climbing up Mt luxmore, the track go rockier and harder to negogiate (though not “un runnable” hard), then we were running along ridge lines and descending and climbing all over again, there was 2 stations along the way and the odd marshall with food scattered along the route. This was the most amazing bit, quite frankly “awesome”.

Awesome running

This part kept on going, but you didn’t care, never got sick of it, even though you rounded the next corner and you saw that it just kept on going up. It was amazing, but having said that you were kinda glad to get to hanging valley shelter and know that it was down from here. It was around 4 hrs when I got to hanging valley shelter and I thought cool I should be down to Iris Burn hut in 30min or so…

… ah well, from this point the hopes and dreams of time kind of went out the window, you thought your mind was playing tricks on you as you look at the watch, and well it was my time calculations got more and more warped as time went on…

Anyway it was a sharp descent from Hanging valley to the hut, it started by decending a ridge line, which had lots and lots of stairs. I don’t do stairs well at the best of times, but when I am tired, there have been 350 odd runners over them already that morning and they were slick with mud and the concentration on making sure you didn’t trip (because if you did it would have hurt), so I took it slow.

Then it was on to the zig zag, I was rather happy with my downward progression, I over took some people, it was hard on the corners because you had to brake and slow to make it around. There was one point where I thought we must almost be down, it went flatish for a while and crossed a swing bridge, I was very disorientated by this point  didn’t know which way was what. But it still just kept on going down. My feet were starting to get very tired and it was a great feeling when you got a fairly flatish bit and just run that out. Eventually, after what seemed like a age the hut appeared in a glade through the bush.

Had to stop and use the toilet, grabbed something to eat. Something I discovered is organges are awesome. They just feel refreshing, all the aid stations had organge quarters and I started eating them and loving it. By this time I was also gutsing the bananas back without having to think about not choking on them. I had made it to Iris Burn in 5 hrs, that was about the time I had orginally been planning, so I was very happy with the time. I had 5 hrs to get to Rainbow reach 20K away… easy… in the next hour or so this didn’t seem so easy.

So the next 30K was through the bush, I had known before hand that this would be the hard bit, I had a 10:1 run:walk planned, but it turned into more of a 1:1 ratio. There were more uphills than I would have thought, it became walk the uphills and run the downhills and see how you felt on the flat.  I did some sea sawing with one guy, when I walked he past me, he walked I past him. After a couple of times of this we joined up and ran/walked together. He was struggling more than me, so I lead and just got into a rythmn. Thats what happened from then on, people just formed packs, its much more motivating to have to run with some one and amazing comardrie between us back of the packers is. We were all in pain, it was just about surviving. Eventually we got to Rocky ridge shelter, this is when the wheels fell of and I mentally crashed. They had a sign up of K’s to go, 10 to the next hut 16K to Rainbow reach and 26K still to go to the end.

It had taken me 1.5hr to get to this point from Iris Burn hut. I was dumb founded, I hadn’t been moving that slow. I think somewhere my brain and watch had become disconnected, as that still doesn’t sound right to me, but after that it was just about getting to Rainbow reach before the 10hr cut off. That is all that became important, I walked a substantial bit of the next bit, my mind no longer in the game.

Things have become a bit of a blur along this point but I eventually made it to Moturau hut at about 8hrs. I had lost my pack of freinds somewhere along the way and was alone. Some how knowing only 6K to go to Rainbow Reach gave me a boost, I told my self, I could make that in 35min and then I’ll be on time to get home in under 10hrs, so I just kept going for the next 6 K. Dad was going to wait for me at Rainbow Reach, but he had got bored waiting for me, so he had started walking down the track, he probably meet me about 2K before Rainbow reach. He started asking me questions, whatn was it like going down the Iris Burn? WTF! I have been running for 8 odd hours, and he wants a race report out of me before I have even finished, told him I couldn’t talk and just kept on running. He jogged behind me and took some photos (Don’t have them yet, I’ll post them when I get them). I was kind of spurred on, wanted to run him into the ground… yeah right, I wasn’t quite thinking straight as you can tell, I was probably shuffling along at a minimal pace thinking I was running a sprint. Eventually made it to Rainbow reach 8hrs 45. The guy at the aid station was really friendly. Phil Costely(now the holder of the challenge record and the grunt record) was there, he said at prize giving that he had popped in to Rainbow Reach after doing the grunt and was inspired by watching the tail enders go through, and the suffering endured…

Any way 10K was left to go, kept on telling myself  just like running around the blue track at the plantation, unfortunatly all I could remember was the last time I had run around there and for whatever reason struggled with the 10K. Though I now had no time constraint, I could walk the entire way if I wanted. It was a toss up really, suffer more but be quicker by running, or suffer less but slower by walking, in the end I just tried to run as much as I could. Along this last 10K things started to cramp, the inner thigh muscles.. the stablises started cramping up near the groin and just above the knee. At one point I had to try and stretch the one above the knee out, but in doing so my hamstrings cramp, decided I need my hamstrings more than that silly muscle above the knee and just kept on going. I did probably laugh hysterically at this point, slightly mad in the head. I was also getting cramp in my shoulders from the pack.

I got to the next aid station with 5.3k to go, I think I almost cried on the lady there, I was just so glad to see the aid station, and 5 K ain’t so bad… or is it? I knew the final aid station was at 2.4K to go, and when I kept on going and never finding it, I was just hoping that, that final aid station didn’t exist and that the end was almost in site, but I did eventually get there. 2.4 K had never felt so long, it was forever, you kept on trying to look out through the bush up the river to see if you could see the control gates, but you could never quite see enough, until finally there was a parting and then you started to hear the microphone of the finish line and then a sign saying 1Km to go! Yah you start to jog harder and then a blimin’ slope appears that feels like a mountain so you are back to a walk. Then you keep jogging but decide to walk for a bit because you want to look good going across the finish and need to conserve your energy. Then you see some people gathering just before the finish, Rachel and Graham and kids are there that makes you smile and you start running across the finish line. The commentator reads out the nafe thing you wrote down in the 2 sec decision you made while trying to enter and then there is the finish.

Never felt so happy to be some where before. The lady handed me a medal, I never expected a medal, I don’t know why, but I am so proud of that medal, it is going to have pride of place in my medal collection.

Oh my time 10hrs 20min. I would have been happier if it had been under 10hrs but I don’t really care that much. I finished, I wasn’t last, I was definitely in the lower proportion of the field but don’t care that much.

Finish Line at last

Conclusion

I have never hurt so much, I sat down after the race and could barely move. It hurt a lot. c2c hadn’t been that hard, I put it down to I wasn’t prehaps as fit as I was for c2c, but c2c isn’t as bone jaring as long on the run and you get to sit down a whole lot more, and this is where my weight counts against me…

…I look at myself, I know that my main advantage are my legs, I have massively powerful leg and glut muscles, but these muscles are hampered because they are having to push a extra 10Kg of fat up the hill. These muscles themselves are weighty beasts, and I will never have the whip cord thin physique of those awesomely fast runners, but I know that the only way to truly be able to improve my performance would be to ditch that extra 10kg of fat and give these muscles a chance of impressing themselves.

But I think I say this against every major event I do, lose weight and you will do better, I whinge and whine about it. I managed to loose 20Kg, but another 10 just doesn’t want to go and deep down I don’t really care about it going. I find it hard to loose weight also when I am training, even with a nutrionist looking over my shoulder. I need to mentally sit down and work out what is truly important.

Ok away from the weight issue to other aspects of the race:

I didn’t need to carry as much food with me as I did, the aid stations were regular enough, if I was to do it in the future I’d just have a water bottle, and less food, I didn’t need as much perpetum as I took either, and it was quite weighty in the back pack.

I was really happy the way my body stood up to the beating. Aside from cramping no muclsles or joints were harmed in the running of this race. For this I will have to give big ups to Jen, my Personal Trainer from Form Fitness who has been doing my weights program for the last few months, it worked a treat. Other wise I think I would have been having all sorts of injury problems out there.

I was really happy with my running technique as well, even to the end I felt it was still in good form where as I saw others shuffling along I was still lifting my feet up. I am also happy at how I came down the hill, and even though I still need to work on some off my off road running, I have to think that Karen’s technique and off road courses were a great help. I just have more confidence in getting over the terrain than I did. I missed most of the running classes in the last 6 months, but I’ll be back in the new year.

p.s There will be more photos to come, these are just a few that I have found.