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The Volcano Challenge Race Report

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This is a photo essay so click more only if you are brave!

I got up at 5:30 and had breakfast (oats and coffee).  I got all my running gear together (ipod, garmin, roadID, fuelbelt and camera!).  My beloved wife and daughter both got up early so they could drop me off.  The plan was that they would meet me after the event for a celebratory snack.

I arrived birght and early and checked in.  I could see the spire of the monunment at the top of One Tree Hill peaking over the top of the trees around the start area and it looked reasonably high at that point!

I have to say that conditions were perfect.  For the first weekend in about two months we had a glorious sunny day.  The downside was that at 7AM it was absolutely freezing!  There was frost on all the grass and my feet felt like blocks of ice.

The prerace briefing was short and too the point.  The only thing of interest was that the medical staff were only going to be at the start line so the race director said “If you are going to get injured please have the decency of doing it at the start finish line!”  Hopefully no one was injured as we all chuckled at that.

There was a good crowd in of about 400 (really random guess) or so people.  The start was quite funny.  The announcer came on and said “Two minutes to go” then paused and said “Make that 20 seconds!”  Everyone rushed to get to the start and then we were off.

The Volcano Challenge is a bit different from most events in that there is no set course.  There is a recommended course which is 18.7 km but you are free to take any route you like.  The only caveat is that you have to check in at 5 different check-in points which are situated at the 5 highest points on 5 of Auckland’s Volcanoes.

The steepest volcano is One Tree Hill so I decided to tackle that one first while I was fresh.

Did I mention that it was freezing?  I couldn’t feel my hands for the first three kilometers.  Once we got to the top we had to check in with a marshal and then make our way to the next volcano of our choice.  Here’s a view from the top of One Tree Hill.  The large mound on the left is Mt Eden and the smaller green mound on the right is Mt St Johns.  I headed off towards Mt St Johns next.

I had a route preplanned (as I’d done some reconnoitering earlier in the week) but most of the crowd just ran straight down the side of the volcano (ignoring the paths) and like a lemming I charged after.  It was steep and muddy and I was running.  Not a good combination.  I almost fell over once and decided to slow down a bit.

We did a bit of running through some little alleyways and what not and then arrived at Mt St Johns.  Once more the crowd ran straight up the side of the volcano rather than take the nice easy path.  I had this guys bum in my face for a while:

Here’s the view back towards One Tree Hill.

We had to avoid the biological land mines!

Here I am at the top of Mt St Johns.

I had a big smile on my face the whole run.  Next volcano on my list was Mt Hobson.  This was pretty close to Mt St Johns and once more the crowd just ran up the side.  Who needs proper pathways anyway eh?

The crowd doing this challenge seemed rather fit and tough.  It was quite nice to be part of such a great group.

Here I am at the top of Mt Hobson.  I tried to take a photo at the top of every volcano so that I could prove to my wife that I had done the run and not just spent the morning in a cafe reading the paper!

Next I headed off towards the Domain.  To get there I had to run through the suburban streets again.  It was quite funny as by this time the competitors had all sort of spread out.  I finally managed to see some off in the distance!

The next checkin point was in the band rotundra in the Domain.

The final volcano I had to run up was Mt Eden.  Along the way I had to run across the motorway.

I’ve been up this one quite a few times as it’s one of my favourite running tracks.  That doesn’t mean its easy however!  This one is also very steep and I was very pleased to get to the top!  The view from the top is fantastic as well!

I think I took the long way down Mt Eden as I was the only competitor I saw from there to the finish.  I found some stairs that bypassed quite a long loop and thought it was shorter.  I actually ran up these on Friday but luckily today I was running down them!

I then had a pretty straight and slightly downhill run all the way back to the finish at One Tree Hill.  Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos at the finish as I was focused on the post race activities.

My wife, daughter and in-laws met me at the end and we went for a celebratory Devonshire tea at one of the local cafes.  It was good and well deserved!

Overall it was a fantastic event.  I managed to do it in 15.8 km and in 1:36:11.  I also climbed more than 1500 meters during the event which is quite a lot I think!

I think the greatest victory I had today was having the confidence to do it.  As I was running I kept smiling as I was just so happy to be out and being able to do this event.  A year ago I would not have even dreamt of being able to comfortably walk up any of these volcanoes never mind run up 5 in one morning!

Next year I’ll try the epic challenge which is 7 volcanoes!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pm and is filed under running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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