It's
still dark outside, the crown of mountains circling the lodge, darker jagged
outlines against the inky sky. I have
just gulped down about six metric cups of hot porridge (topped with Greek yoghurt and brown sugar - best pre race
breakfast ever). The room bustles with technical fabric clad athletes,
exchanging pre-race advice and bravado in a hushed reverence. The air is thick with anticipation.
Last night we dined like kings (in a cloud of sand flies), on a feast of locally sourced venison, salads, sausages and a mountain of carbs. After the rain closed in, I went to bed, and lay awake for hours, listening to the wind crash into the side of the hut. At one point I ventured out into the night, truly witnessing for the first time, what Alfred Noyes had meant when he described the moon as a "ghostly galleon tossed upon stormy seas". Even in the depths of the night, the surrounding peaks were remarkably visible, silhouetted against the patches of stars.
I can hear low thudding in the distance. I head out into the grey dawn, as the first helicopter bursts over the building behind me, blasting sound and light all around. Landing lights flood down from between the skids as the helicopters are guided in to land. A whirlwind of sound and down draught whips around the crowd of grinning runners. I wonder of I am the only one to have been momentarily transported into the atmosphere of a daring military operation. My insides are dancing with excitement.
Morning has suddenly dawned. I scramble for a window seat, don a headset and marvel at finally being seated in the belly of one of these juddering beasts. No one told me that the action of the blades makes you feel like you are sitting on a giant washing machine that is churning it's way through a spin cycle. This is my first ride in a helicopter. I am just a little nervous.
As the blades whip up to speed, we are suddenly in the air. The pilot sweeps us in a swooping arc out of the valley. Climbing steadily, we shoot over a wildly steep ridge, the helicopter plunging with stomach -flipping speed down the other side. This landscape is unbelievable!
The helicopter follows the winding Shotover River, landing at the Pipeline Bungy site. Scores of runners are deposited out of busses, catapulted neatly into the lines for the loos. The field of competitors appear to be elite, experienced ( nearly everyone sporting event paraphernalia from a recent 100km event), competitive ( comparing notes on the performance of other runners in their race category) and fast. In particular I notice moving bunches of steely-charactered men (the notorious 40+ category), discussing their competition, eyeing each other with an air of war. The interaction is good natured, fascinating, and vaguely terrifying.
I recognise several rather famous runners. I feel pretty privileged to be lining up on the start line amongst running royalty. Oddly, the more accomplished the field, the less nervous I feel. I joke with a fellow runner: we hope that we aren't intimidating the completion too much.
Race briefing. Cross bungy bridge. Slither down slope to beach and starting area. I line up towards the back of the pack. A kapahaka group send up a stiring Haka into the morning ( a fantastic touch!). And we are off, running though a guard of-honour-Haka-gantlet, and off up our first hill.
The first part of the course undulates over some low hills, the track is wide enough to pass others, and I do. I am feeling fast and light footed as I rush through the grass and scrub.
Descending briefly back to the river bed, I wade through a patch of sand, feeling proud that for the first time in my racing career, I am running WITH men. I must clarify here, that of course, every race I have entered has included men in the starting lineup, but usually I only ever see them disappearing into the distance. I tend to meander at the rear of the pack, well behind runners that have been running for longer than I have been alive. But today, I am actually keeping up. The runners around me look really fit, and that makes me feel fantastic.
The first climb begins. Up and away from the river, the at-first gentle climb, quickly becomes a calf-searing scree slope. Sure, the silhouettes of the runners ahead of me winding up the ridge are spectacularly picturesque, but my legs are on fire, so I put my head down and work as hard as I can.
The morning is cool, full of golden sunlight, great grey clouds, and painfully blue sky. At the top of the ridge, the trail turns into a narrow, cliff-hugging path. I scramble along. Everyone around me is swift, and those that aren’t, are courteous. Progress is good, even when I am sideling around large rocky outcrops, even when the ground next to the goat-path-track is actually just air, even when my feet fail to find the ground all together. I sprawl over the edge more than once. So do lots of others. Everyone checks that everyone is ok. As the path widens, I plunge on.
I know that I am supposed to stick to my own race plan, run at the pace I trained for, and not pay attention to the progress of those around me, but the porridge is making my legs fast and strong, and I take tremendous pleasure every time I pass another runner. Today, the competitor is me is strong. I go with it.
A steep descent over bleached tussocks propels me onto the valley floor. The first aid station: a plethora of grinning marshals’ weild electrolyte, bananas and sports beans. I fill my belly and my pockets and get stuck into the next climb.
I am always so impressed by how fast others are able to climb up hills. My speed is pretty average, but plenty of other float past me, bounding upward at great speed; I want to be this good! The course joins the first of many sections that follow the remnants of an old water race. The wider trail, winding around bluffs and traversing small streams and the odd rock fall, is extremely runable, and I feel myself speeding up. The morning light is still crisp and bright, the sunlight feels sharp, and the contrast between light and shade is almost blinding.
Diving into beech forest, the trail crisscrosses a stream, heading decidedly, but comfortably upwards. I splash through the chilly water again and again, and am suddenly deposited back into the brightness. A narrow, tussock shrouded valley, the trail underfoot sometimes creek, sometimes stone, sometimes swamp. The marathon course veers off, and I rock-climb for a short section. I haul my wet feet upwards with the aid of a handily located and deftly knotted rope.
Climbing through tussocks, the steep ridge above me disappears into the blinding face of the sun. For a while, I feel like I am the only person on earth, bathed in sun, the runners ahead of me, dissolved against the bright sky. A cloud races in, bringing a cold gust of wind, competitors toiling away above me, I am back in the race.
I love this particular climb among the ridges and peaks. Every step elevates me, revealing more of the ranges draped all around. The going is steep, but neatly interspersed with satisfyingly runable sections, is this the best race on earth? The mountains are flooded with sunshine and shade by turns, the landscape flitting between hues of green and grey and gold. The mountains stretch forever.
More sustenance at the peak, then a slithering ski-like descent over ice-slippery tussocks - a few moments of descent undoing all of those recent upward footsteps. I find these treacherous tussocks quite a challenge, and am slowed to short scattering footsteps, every second foot-fall threatening to send me head over heels, possibly all the way to the bottom.
A brief reprieve along a short section of 4wd track, then back to climbing, then more quad punishing descent – the Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon does exactly what it says on the box. The next section of water race leads me past piles of abandoned mining equipment. Pickaxes, helmets and other items of unrecognizable twisted metal line the trail. The water race sections remind me of The Great Naseby Water Race (which I loved), running this sort of terrain again fills me with fond memories.
A thrilling descent down a shifting scree slope makes for my favorite descent of the race. Although the slope is very steep, I bound down, each foot-fall securely sinking ankle deep into gravel, I feel like I am flying. Amazingly the contents of my shoes remains entirely of feet and socks, I don’t have to stop to empty gravel out of my footwear.
Down to the river, I splash through the wide, shallow, lazy flow, grateful for all of the river-bed training I have been doing at home. Exiting from the river (via a ladder – BRILLIANT!), I climb to more beech-forest-shrouded water race. Back in the sunlight, and the day is rapidly warming. I discover that I have lost my sunscreen, desperately trying to avoid sunburn, I slather my SPF+15 chap stick all over my shoulders (in retrospect, this approach was only mildly successful, and is not recommended).
A final dash through beating sun, and I emerge at Moonlight Lodge, gobble some sports beans, and then stumble (porridge energy has all but evaporated at this point) up the next incline onto Death Ridge.
I don’t usually have a problem with heights, but as I shuffle along the ridge, my patented blend of tiredness, low-ish blood sugar, and the sobering realization that I have only just made the half way point (and consequently that my 7 hour finishing goal is a bit out of reach), makes me feel a little giddy along that narrow ridge. I concentrate on my breathing and try to ignore how far below me the earth is.
Safely restored from my balancing act, I charge down to Ben Lomond Lodge. Greeted with encouraging compliments from none other than the one and only Anna Frost (yep, pretty cool to be cheered on by one of my hero’s), I grab fistfuls of cold, cooked potatoes. Potatoes have never looked so good, and it is surprising how many I manage to fit into my hands as I head up the road towards my final big climb. I give myself a well-deserved walking break, and enjoy my potato feast in the sunshine.
As the road climbs and climbs, I am exposed to the wind. I run most of the way up, even the steeper sections; it is a joy to have more energy, and such runable terrain. When I already think that I am at quite an altitude again, the road gives way to another steep and tricky climb. Before I know it I am on another, even higher, more precarious feeling ridge. The vertigo returns. More controlled breathing. This ridge is remarkably familiar, it's the one we plunged over in the helicopter this morning. That feels like a lifetime ago. The trail is narrow, and the wind buffets me, sounding like the ocean as it crashes into the rocks around me. I wish that this marathon had come with a disclaimer about heights, and then I could have better prepared myself for tackling these killer peaks. After the race I heard another runner describe this part of the trail “like running on a balance beam, on an angle, 1000m in the air”. That pretty much sums it up.
I was feeling a bit grim, but just as I needed it, a fellow runner came past and struck up a conversation with me, boosting my spirits no end, and spurring me on in a much better head space. To that runner, I am extremely grateful.
Next came a seemingly endless and impossibly steep descent. The half dozen, sunken goat-carcasses, half way down, do little to boost my confidence. My descending, never particularly quick or sure-footed, was reduced to a crawl as I clung to the fence wires. My quads wanted to give up and cry, but I wouldn’t let them.
Finally the bottom, a short, bouncy, handrail-less bridge and then another, much easier climb to the final aid station. The marshal at this station was fantastic; he couldn’t do enough to help each runner, and praised everyone with warm and heartfelt encouragement. I left with a smile from ear to ear.
The final descent was relatively easy, although it took a while for my wasted quads to warm to the idea (I wondered if I was going to be able to walk the next day). I duly met the much anticipated and delightfully refreshing riverbed. With renewed energy I pushed on hard. I knew I had only a few km to go (my GPS watch had run out of battery, so I didn’t know exactly how many kms), and I knew that compared to what I had conquered thus far, it was going to be easy.
At some point, the early morning has turned into late afternoon. The sun light becoming lazy, the air thick and mostly windless, the shadows growing long, the sky to the south collecting clouds. I splash through river crossing, after river crossing, languishing sometimes up to the waist in the beautifully cool water. The course travels through a short tunnel, the dim interior an exciting feature, so close to the end.
Finally the river valley widens, in the distance I can see The Woolshed, and the long awaited finish line. I dig deep and put every remaining shred of energy into my legs. The closer I draw to the end, the more determined I am to finish strong, and the slower my legs seem to travel. By the time I drag myself up the final slope and across the finish line I am utterly spent. And by god, I am utterly satisfied.
The Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon challenged me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined, but the whole race just went so damn well. There are enough mountains, views and river crossings to lighten the soul of even the most hardened trail runner. The terrain varies from highly technical to extremely runable, and the marshals’ were focused, caring, genuine and encouraging.
From a personal perspective, I felt that I ran really well, the speed training seemed to have paid off as I was happy with my overall pace, and my fueling both pre- and during the race, was generally pretty effective. I finished in just over eight and a half hours and in 8th place for my category. Pleased much? I think so!
An enormous thank you to Adrian, the Foster family, the volunteers and my fellow competitors – you are all amazing! Will I be back next year? HELL YES – I am already trying to work out where I can train so that I will be able to conquer those killer ridges with confidence.
What a race!
Last night we dined like kings (in a cloud of sand flies), on a feast of locally sourced venison, salads, sausages and a mountain of carbs. After the rain closed in, I went to bed, and lay awake for hours, listening to the wind crash into the side of the hut. At one point I ventured out into the night, truly witnessing for the first time, what Alfred Noyes had meant when he described the moon as a "ghostly galleon tossed upon stormy seas". Even in the depths of the night, the surrounding peaks were remarkably visible, silhouetted against the patches of stars.
I can hear low thudding in the distance. I head out into the grey dawn, as the first helicopter bursts over the building behind me, blasting sound and light all around. Landing lights flood down from between the skids as the helicopters are guided in to land. A whirlwind of sound and down draught whips around the crowd of grinning runners. I wonder of I am the only one to have been momentarily transported into the atmosphere of a daring military operation. My insides are dancing with excitement.
Morning has suddenly dawned. I scramble for a window seat, don a headset and marvel at finally being seated in the belly of one of these juddering beasts. No one told me that the action of the blades makes you feel like you are sitting on a giant washing machine that is churning it's way through a spin cycle. This is my first ride in a helicopter. I am just a little nervous.
As the blades whip up to speed, we are suddenly in the air. The pilot sweeps us in a swooping arc out of the valley. Climbing steadily, we shoot over a wildly steep ridge, the helicopter plunging with stomach -flipping speed down the other side. This landscape is unbelievable!
The helicopter follows the winding Shotover River, landing at the Pipeline Bungy site. Scores of runners are deposited out of busses, catapulted neatly into the lines for the loos. The field of competitors appear to be elite, experienced ( nearly everyone sporting event paraphernalia from a recent 100km event), competitive ( comparing notes on the performance of other runners in their race category) and fast. In particular I notice moving bunches of steely-charactered men (the notorious 40+ category), discussing their competition, eyeing each other with an air of war. The interaction is good natured, fascinating, and vaguely terrifying.
I recognise several rather famous runners. I feel pretty privileged to be lining up on the start line amongst running royalty. Oddly, the more accomplished the field, the less nervous I feel. I joke with a fellow runner: we hope that we aren't intimidating the completion too much.
Race briefing. Cross bungy bridge. Slither down slope to beach and starting area. I line up towards the back of the pack. A kapahaka group send up a stiring Haka into the morning ( a fantastic touch!). And we are off, running though a guard of-honour-Haka-gantlet, and off up our first hill.
The first part of the course undulates over some low hills, the track is wide enough to pass others, and I do. I am feeling fast and light footed as I rush through the grass and scrub.
Descending briefly back to the river bed, I wade through a patch of sand, feeling proud that for the first time in my racing career, I am running WITH men. I must clarify here, that of course, every race I have entered has included men in the starting lineup, but usually I only ever see them disappearing into the distance. I tend to meander at the rear of the pack, well behind runners that have been running for longer than I have been alive. But today, I am actually keeping up. The runners around me look really fit, and that makes me feel fantastic.
The first climb begins. Up and away from the river, the at-first gentle climb, quickly becomes a calf-searing scree slope. Sure, the silhouettes of the runners ahead of me winding up the ridge are spectacularly picturesque, but my legs are on fire, so I put my head down and work as hard as I can.
The morning is cool, full of golden sunlight, great grey clouds, and painfully blue sky. At the top of the ridge, the trail turns into a narrow, cliff-hugging path. I scramble along. Everyone around me is swift, and those that aren’t, are courteous. Progress is good, even when I am sideling around large rocky outcrops, even when the ground next to the goat-path-track is actually just air, even when my feet fail to find the ground all together. I sprawl over the edge more than once. So do lots of others. Everyone checks that everyone is ok. As the path widens, I plunge on.
I know that I am supposed to stick to my own race plan, run at the pace I trained for, and not pay attention to the progress of those around me, but the porridge is making my legs fast and strong, and I take tremendous pleasure every time I pass another runner. Today, the competitor is me is strong. I go with it.
A steep descent over bleached tussocks propels me onto the valley floor. The first aid station: a plethora of grinning marshals’ weild electrolyte, bananas and sports beans. I fill my belly and my pockets and get stuck into the next climb.
I am always so impressed by how fast others are able to climb up hills. My speed is pretty average, but plenty of other float past me, bounding upward at great speed; I want to be this good! The course joins the first of many sections that follow the remnants of an old water race. The wider trail, winding around bluffs and traversing small streams and the odd rock fall, is extremely runable, and I feel myself speeding up. The morning light is still crisp and bright, the sunlight feels sharp, and the contrast between light and shade is almost blinding.
Diving into beech forest, the trail crisscrosses a stream, heading decidedly, but comfortably upwards. I splash through the chilly water again and again, and am suddenly deposited back into the brightness. A narrow, tussock shrouded valley, the trail underfoot sometimes creek, sometimes stone, sometimes swamp. The marathon course veers off, and I rock-climb for a short section. I haul my wet feet upwards with the aid of a handily located and deftly knotted rope.
Climbing through tussocks, the steep ridge above me disappears into the blinding face of the sun. For a while, I feel like I am the only person on earth, bathed in sun, the runners ahead of me, dissolved against the bright sky. A cloud races in, bringing a cold gust of wind, competitors toiling away above me, I am back in the race.
I love this particular climb among the ridges and peaks. Every step elevates me, revealing more of the ranges draped all around. The going is steep, but neatly interspersed with satisfyingly runable sections, is this the best race on earth? The mountains are flooded with sunshine and shade by turns, the landscape flitting between hues of green and grey and gold. The mountains stretch forever.
More sustenance at the peak, then a slithering ski-like descent over ice-slippery tussocks - a few moments of descent undoing all of those recent upward footsteps. I find these treacherous tussocks quite a challenge, and am slowed to short scattering footsteps, every second foot-fall threatening to send me head over heels, possibly all the way to the bottom.
A brief reprieve along a short section of 4wd track, then back to climbing, then more quad punishing descent – the Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon does exactly what it says on the box. The next section of water race leads me past piles of abandoned mining equipment. Pickaxes, helmets and other items of unrecognizable twisted metal line the trail. The water race sections remind me of The Great Naseby Water Race (which I loved), running this sort of terrain again fills me with fond memories.
A thrilling descent down a shifting scree slope makes for my favorite descent of the race. Although the slope is very steep, I bound down, each foot-fall securely sinking ankle deep into gravel, I feel like I am flying. Amazingly the contents of my shoes remains entirely of feet and socks, I don’t have to stop to empty gravel out of my footwear.
Down to the river, I splash through the wide, shallow, lazy flow, grateful for all of the river-bed training I have been doing at home. Exiting from the river (via a ladder – BRILLIANT!), I climb to more beech-forest-shrouded water race. Back in the sunlight, and the day is rapidly warming. I discover that I have lost my sunscreen, desperately trying to avoid sunburn, I slather my SPF+15 chap stick all over my shoulders (in retrospect, this approach was only mildly successful, and is not recommended).
A final dash through beating sun, and I emerge at Moonlight Lodge, gobble some sports beans, and then stumble (porridge energy has all but evaporated at this point) up the next incline onto Death Ridge.
I don’t usually have a problem with heights, but as I shuffle along the ridge, my patented blend of tiredness, low-ish blood sugar, and the sobering realization that I have only just made the half way point (and consequently that my 7 hour finishing goal is a bit out of reach), makes me feel a little giddy along that narrow ridge. I concentrate on my breathing and try to ignore how far below me the earth is.
Safely restored from my balancing act, I charge down to Ben Lomond Lodge. Greeted with encouraging compliments from none other than the one and only Anna Frost (yep, pretty cool to be cheered on by one of my hero’s), I grab fistfuls of cold, cooked potatoes. Potatoes have never looked so good, and it is surprising how many I manage to fit into my hands as I head up the road towards my final big climb. I give myself a well-deserved walking break, and enjoy my potato feast in the sunshine.
As the road climbs and climbs, I am exposed to the wind. I run most of the way up, even the steeper sections; it is a joy to have more energy, and such runable terrain. When I already think that I am at quite an altitude again, the road gives way to another steep and tricky climb. Before I know it I am on another, even higher, more precarious feeling ridge. The vertigo returns. More controlled breathing. This ridge is remarkably familiar, it's the one we plunged over in the helicopter this morning. That feels like a lifetime ago. The trail is narrow, and the wind buffets me, sounding like the ocean as it crashes into the rocks around me. I wish that this marathon had come with a disclaimer about heights, and then I could have better prepared myself for tackling these killer peaks. After the race I heard another runner describe this part of the trail “like running on a balance beam, on an angle, 1000m in the air”. That pretty much sums it up.
I was feeling a bit grim, but just as I needed it, a fellow runner came past and struck up a conversation with me, boosting my spirits no end, and spurring me on in a much better head space. To that runner, I am extremely grateful.
Next came a seemingly endless and impossibly steep descent. The half dozen, sunken goat-carcasses, half way down, do little to boost my confidence. My descending, never particularly quick or sure-footed, was reduced to a crawl as I clung to the fence wires. My quads wanted to give up and cry, but I wouldn’t let them.
Finally the bottom, a short, bouncy, handrail-less bridge and then another, much easier climb to the final aid station. The marshal at this station was fantastic; he couldn’t do enough to help each runner, and praised everyone with warm and heartfelt encouragement. I left with a smile from ear to ear.
The final descent was relatively easy, although it took a while for my wasted quads to warm to the idea (I wondered if I was going to be able to walk the next day). I duly met the much anticipated and delightfully refreshing riverbed. With renewed energy I pushed on hard. I knew I had only a few km to go (my GPS watch had run out of battery, so I didn’t know exactly how many kms), and I knew that compared to what I had conquered thus far, it was going to be easy.
At some point, the early morning has turned into late afternoon. The sun light becoming lazy, the air thick and mostly windless, the shadows growing long, the sky to the south collecting clouds. I splash through river crossing, after river crossing, languishing sometimes up to the waist in the beautifully cool water. The course travels through a short tunnel, the dim interior an exciting feature, so close to the end.
Finally the river valley widens, in the distance I can see The Woolshed, and the long awaited finish line. I dig deep and put every remaining shred of energy into my legs. The closer I draw to the end, the more determined I am to finish strong, and the slower my legs seem to travel. By the time I drag myself up the final slope and across the finish line I am utterly spent. And by god, I am utterly satisfied.
The Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon challenged me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined, but the whole race just went so damn well. There are enough mountains, views and river crossings to lighten the soul of even the most hardened trail runner. The terrain varies from highly technical to extremely runable, and the marshals’ were focused, caring, genuine and encouraging.
From a personal perspective, I felt that I ran really well, the speed training seemed to have paid off as I was happy with my overall pace, and my fueling both pre- and during the race, was generally pretty effective. I finished in just over eight and a half hours and in 8th place for my category. Pleased much? I think so!
An enormous thank you to Adrian, the Foster family, the volunteers and my fellow competitors – you are all amazing! Will I be back next year? HELL YES – I am already trying to work out where I can train so that I will be able to conquer those killer ridges with confidence.
What a race!
 |
| Wicked SMMM 2014 Medal |
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