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I’ve got the Volcano Challenge coming up on Sunday and I’ve never been up two of the volcanoes so I decided that I would go for a recce today as part of my run.
The weather was a bit better than it has been although it was drizzling very lightly when I left. I got caught in a very heavy shower about 3/4 of the way through but then the sun came out and dried me out so overall the weather was good.
I actually went through three volcanoes today. I hit the Auckland Domain first. Then I ran to Mt Hobson which is very close to where I live. Funnily enough I’ve never been to it even though I’ve driven past it many a time. I wanted to have a good look at different routes to the top so I ran around it having a look. The ground on the volcano was extremely muddy as we’ve had rain pretty much every day for the last 3 weeks (at least it feels like that - maybe it’s only 2 weeks). I suspect the mud will be bad on the weekend as well.
The next volcano was Mt St Johns. This one looks very small but it was surprisingly high and the view from the top was pretty good. I didn’t take my camera along but I will for the actual race on Sunday.
I then thought about hitting Mt Eden as well but I needed to get back to work as I had quite a bit to do.
I have to say that I’m very fortunate to live in a place that has all these interesting places to run to and around.
In other news I did week 02 day 02 of the essential abs program. This wasn’t quite as tough as day 01 of week 02 for some reason.
I also did the week 04 exhaustion test for the 100 pushups challenge yesterday afternoon. When I first started I could do 25. After two weeks I did 35 and this week I managed to do a very respectable 45 pushups in a row. I wonder if this increasing by 10 at a time is psychological? Never mind. This keeps me in the dreaded column 03 - I’m still amazed I’m in this column! I’ll do week 05 day 01 in the gym tomorrow. I suspect I’ll be doing week 05 for about 2 months! It looks really hard.
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I’ve been looking out for some races to do now that the Run Auckland Series has finished. Aaron steered me towards this one: The Volcanoes Challenge!
This event has some conventional races such as a 5K and a 10K but the option that caught my eye is a bit more unconventional.
I’m thinking of doing the Volcano Challenge:
The signature event is the original Volcanoes Challenge which involves participants running or walking from One Tree Hill to and up the nominated volcanoes and checking in at the points on 5 of Auckland’s oldest and most popular volcanic sites – One Tree Hill, Mt Eden, Auckland Domain, Mt Hobson and Mt St Johns.
This race has no pre-set course, its up to you which way you go to get to the 5 check points and it’s the quickest route wins.
This sounds like a lot of fun and some quite hard work too. Basically you have to run to, and then up, 5 different volcanoes that are scattered around Auckland. There is no set route although they do provide you with a suggested route that is about 18 or so kilometers long. I reckon I could shave a km or two off that with some crafty navigation.
I won’t be in this to win but more to just have fun. I’m going to treat this as a gentle long walk/run for week 04 of my half-marathon training program. I’ll be sure to take my camera along and get photos of all the volcanoes. :)
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