The Slipper Affair

I remember having a pair of red slippers when I was a wee lad that were like a second skin.

In fact I think I wore them so much that they actually grafted. So comfy are they in my memory that I can almost see me lazing back in a big red armchair, in the library, smoking a pipe with a self satisfied grin on my face. A picture of contentment. Except 14 year-olds should not be smoking pipes.

Those slippers remind me of the North Face Single Track Hayasas: bright and light, smoochy comfortable (that’s a technical term), and slippery as hell when the kitchen floor was wet.

A low lug design, with problem areas particularly on the forefoot, is about the only shadow on the Hayasa’s reputation, for otherwise they are dreamboat trail shoe for everything bar the roughest of going.

The back story is that they were designed in collaboration with renowned ultra athlete, TNF-sponsored Tsuyoshi Kaburaki. He’s pretty fast on his feet and wanted his clogs to be as little hinderance in the weight stakes as possible. So he and lab coated ones went about stripping and essentially redefining the ‘Single Tracks’ of old, for these sparkly blue/red/pink are a quantum leap from the old black and white Single Tracks (which were in themselves  – and still are – a damn fine shoe, review here).

Given they still offer decent cushioning, protection and stability, The Hayasas are ridiculously light  – 280g in Size 10.5  Mens – and perfect for trail racing. I tested over 10-28km distances, racking up near on 120km to date on varying style trails – mostly winding single track and fire trail. The result is that when I go to the cupboard full of shoes, and I’m supposed to be sharing the love, my hands and feet are drawn like a magnet to the Ferarri red slippers. They just feel fast. The weight loss has been found by minimising construction elements in the upper, using slimmed mesh and losing some seams to keep only priority welds. The bonus result in a breezy upper is that these shoes drain as fast as they run.

The flip side is that just as my old slippers used to collect toast crumbs, the Hayasas did seem to cup up a fair whack of trail debris around the heel and ankle, the result of the low profile cut. A particular problem after running beaches, which I tend to do on the Surf Coast.

The strange thing for me in running these shoes was that they felt as though they teased ever so slightly into minimalist territory, a good thing for me as I move to a mid-forefoot strike. Yet the specs still show a good 18mm heel with  a  10mm drop (18mm/8mm heel/forefoot). Definitely not minimalist territory! Perhaps it is the overall low profile of the midsole that has you feeling quite low to the ground with excellent trail feel. The balance Kaburaki has found in these shoes is their main strength – they haven’t been stripped to their G-String barest as is the trend with brands latching onto minimalism, yet they are a long way from being built like a Baghdad tank, either.

Some have complained there’s a bit too much trail feel, the odd spike apparently finding its way through the Snakeplate, a protection plate that weaves from front to back. I was never on the end of a spear but did find on sharper trails with lots of smaller rocks that the feet started to cop a pounding some – the Hayasas performing much better when the landing pad underfoot was even.

Under the heel the “EVA CRADLE  cushioning and stability technology” has carried over from the old Single Tracks, and does provide better protection to boot.

The lacing system is one of my favourites: stretchy laces, but old fashioned in that they are, well, laces. No finicky plastic bits to bob and befuddle. But the stretch nature combined with the excellent, even spread of tightening means your foot feel snug in place. Yet when the miles are racking up, and the foot begins to swell, the laces have plenty enough give to ensure you don’t start to suffer from the dreaded forefoot pain that comes with tight laces.

Where the Hayasas do let you down is in the grip department. With relatively low profile lugs, they start to lose grip as conditions get wetter. Get into the mud and you’re a goner, especially downhill. Heel strikers get a little more action with reverse facing lugs at the rear, but forefooters will slide. [Having said that, other reviewers have found the grip more than adequate, as did Ultra168 scribe Marcus Werner in his review here].

Despite the grip issue, it’s a quibble if you’re considering these as a regular go to, because in general your regular go-to trails won’t be the super hardcore, get your Parkour brain firing type techy trail – it’ll be meandering flat pack single track or fire road – which these are perfect for. I’m yet to run more than thirty kays in them at a stretch but the feedback from those that have is they keep your feet fresh in the long run too.

Taking that on board, they’d be perfect for The North Face 100 (except that little slippery section…).

Kinda like milk in the fridge, these could be a staple in your shoe collection.

Another great Hayasa review on iRunFar.

TRAIL BRIEF
Great for > racing, smooth trails, fire trails, feet swellers, wet conditions (for the drainage), and long runs (apparently)
Not so great for > slippery, muddy trails, brutally shredding trails, highly technical trails
Test conditions > Mixed trail, hardpacked and soft soil, fire-trail, some technical trail with mud and slippery rock conditions, ~95km
Tester > Chris Ord – middleweight (if that) everyman trail runner, completed the Oxfam 100k, a half TNF100, a bush marathon in the Grampians knocking off four highest peaks, a 90km desert run, and more often than not, shorter distance ‘fun’ trail runs.
Tester mechanics > Mild pronation and midfoot to rear (when getting tired) strike, runners knees.
RRP > AU$220
Web > www2.thenorthface.com.au

Copernicus backs barefoot

The beauty of awarefoot running is the ease, simplicity and freedom it allows you.  Running is the most uncomplicated of endurance pursuits.  As long as you are on the landlocked 33% of the planet  you need little more than whatever your local society dictates is acceptable.  No need for a bike, shoes, helmet and pump, nor a windsurfer or a fiberglass kayak.

When running barefoot all you need are a pair of shorts and, if you’re soft like me, a pair of sandals.  The freedom that this allows is total.  My sandals are always in my car, wrapped up in a pair of running shorts at various stages of fermentation.  All I need to set out is at least half an hour of time and a bit of terra firma beneath me.

This was all brought home on a recent run with another sandal runner, Roland Nelson.  Roland is a Copernicus, a man who reveals what will become standard knowledge but must first overcome the disbelieving masses.  Most of Roland’s truth-slaying happens in financial markets but it may be that his conversion to minimalist running is a signal that shod running will one day be thought of as akin to the planet being flat.

Roland and I ran together when I was drawn to Perth for the birth of my third child.  The city and I don’t get along too well as the almost total absence of trails in the big smoke gives me a sense of claustrophobia but there had been one run I have been wanting to do for years.  The Swan River splits the city of Perth as a spine, with the sprawl of suburbia spreading out in long wings.  I stay in Fremantle which handily hangs two bridges within a few hundred metres of each other, but your next opportunity to cross the river is a further twenty kilometers near the CBD.

I have been told that out and back running has its merits.  I can’t remember who told me which is a sign of how much stock I put in such nonsense.  Loop running is the freest way to run unless you are some sort of a slave to your training diary and the mantra of the negative split.  About seven kilometres out of Fremantle the river doglegs around and reaches one of its narrowest points at an iconic teenage hangout called Blackwall Reach.  The Reach is a notorious rite of passage where teens jump five to ten metres off the limestone cliffs into the city’s meandering river.  From there our plan was to make the 500 metres of freestyle across the river to the luxury mansions of Peppermint Grove.

We mosied around the southern edge of the river, past the army barracks, sailing clubs and nouveau riche McMansions, smiling kindly at the symphony of glares at our sandaled feet.  Just before Blackwall Reach the cycle path leaves the houses and ducks into some coastal scrub.  On top of the cliffs we looked down at the water below, leapt, and thudded into the water with our sandals breaking the surface.

While treading water it was easy to tuck our sandals into our elasticated waists and swim across the channel to the barbeque area on the other side (I have also done run/swims in Vibram Five Fingers which have the added bonus of not needing to be removed).  Once there it was a steep climb up to the driveways of Perth’s landed gentry perched on the river’s northern fringes and then back onto the walkway, through parks along boardwalks and around the limestone cliffs.

While the autumn sun was almost gone it still didn’t take long to dry us off and then replace that with sweat and by the time we got back to Fremantle the only reminder we had of the Swan was the brackish taste in our mouths and the feeling that the awarefoot runner really could go anywhere.

– Garry Dagg, Trail Run Mag Barefoot/Minimalist Guru

As Trail Run Mag’s resident barefoot/minimalist sage, Garry Dagg will continue to write on issues, opinions, styles and techniques of barefoot/minimalist running. And he’ll test the bejesus (a sandal wearer) out of all and sundry modles now flooding the market. He’s on board not to convert, but to offer a perspective, much the same way our Shoe Guru, Simon Bright offers his. Agree or not, better to be aware, even if you’re not a fan of being bare. We welcome your opinions on the barefoot debate – fling them through on info@trailrunmag.com or Facebook them at www.facebook.com/trailrunmag. Garry will also write regularly on the topic online, so sign up for his blogs and news feeds at www.trailrunmag.com. Ed.

Die Morning Runners, Die

Runners are generally a fairly obnoxious species, after all we are always running around, looking great, going on about endorphins and generally feeling pretty good about ourselves because we are fitter than everyone else. But today I would like to write about a particularly unpleasant member of the great running family: the morning runner.

IMAGE: Krystle Wright // www.wrightfoto.com.au

I don’t know what it is about morning runners, but they really get my goat.* Perhaps it is because I am not a morning person and when you ask a morning runner first thing how they are, they nearly always pipe up ever so jollily, “Oh great, I’ve already been for my morning run,” pure joy filling their smug, self-satisfied little face in such a way that makes me want to punch them in said face.**

I often see them on my morning tram to work (usually when I am jammed between a woman with seven chins and some old dude with a hacking cough who hasn’t showered for a week), and there is something about seeing some blissed out morning runner bouncing past, smug-level set to ten, that fills me with rage.

When I put on my Freud hat*** and analyse the morning runner and their profound smugness, I realise that at the root of it, consciously or unconsciously, morning runners think they are better than the rest of us. They think they are the top of the tree. When you begin to grasp this you realise why they are the smuggest of an already smug species. They are smug to the power of smug. Which explains why you always want to put a boot up their arse.

The worst of it is that this smugness is further institutionalised by the fact that pretty much all races are scheduled at an ungodly hour of the morning, when most normal bodies are still coming to grips with the day, wiping sleep from their eyes and adjusting their morning wedgie. This gives morning runners a massive advantage. My dad, who was a handy marathoner back in the day, always said that if they had held marathons in the afternoon instead of the morning, he would have run two or three minutes quicker. That is some advantage for the morning runner.

The scheduling of races so early makes me suspicious, because, let’s face it, morning runners are generally not just so far up their own arses they could lick the roof of their skull, but they are also cunning, like a rat or a Liberal party senator, or some other very cunning species of rodent. The whole thing has a nasty tang about it, a dirty stink, like an old pair of running shoes left in a plastic bag; it reeks of conspiracy.

And I can sniff out a conspiracy easier than I can sniff out a KFC in an adjacent suburb. From my own careful, meticulous research****, I have found that roughly 94.236  per cent of race directors are in fact morning runners. This cannot be an accidental correlation. After all, why else would you spend all your daylight hours ostensibly organising something else for others if there wasn’t something in it for yourself? Race directors (or should I just call them morning runners) are all in it for themselves, to keep the brother/sister-hood of morning runners winning and, by extension, so full of themselves it makes you want to puke.

Clearly something has to be done about this. No one should be allowed to be this smug for this long (unless they are Daryl Somers, obviously), morning runners have to be brought back to the pack. For a start all race directors should be sacked and replaced by that most noble of the running species, the afternoon runner, then all races should be rescheduled for a more reasonable time, like the late afternoon, which is just when the smug expression of the morning runner is beginning to droop. That should wipe the smile off a few faces.

Ross ‘The Flash’ Taylor (Assoc Editor and Editor of Vertical Life, Trail Run Mag’s sister publication about rock climbing)

————————

*I don’t own a goat, in case you are wondering, we just don’t have the space as we live in an apartment.

**I am not advocating violence against morning runners, but certainly a bit of a slapping wouldn’t go astray.

***Interestingly, Freud was a big fan of the white Akubra long before Bob Katter gave it its current association with mad people.

****Five minutes of consulting with The Oracle aka Google.

How much desert running can Jane Trumper Bear?

“I did this whole thing to raise money for Bear Cottage, rather than to see my name up in lights,” she muses. “The lows of the trip were probably when I was out there thinking about Bear Cottage and just realizing how lucky I am to have three healthy kids. I think there was more of that sort of emotion than ‘I can’t do it’.”

Running into Birdsville with pacer and friend Susan Griffen on Day 10

Jane Trumper has just become the first woman to run across Australia’s harsh sunburnt Simpson Desert. Drinking up to 15 litre of water per day in temperatures approaching 45 degrees Celsius, this nurse from Dee Why, who only took up running 8 years ago, set out at dawn on April Fools Day, 2012, uncertain of what lay ahead. 10 days and 660km later, she made it to Birdsville, home of the famous outback races, for a beer, a bath, and a comfortable bed.

At age 51 going on 35, and nicknamed Small in reference to her subtle height, Trumper has an irrepressible lust for life that draws supporters to her. Her friend Susan Griffen came from Tokyo to keep her company along the way, new friends Garry and Janet Tapper drove their 4WD from York in WA and picked her up from Alice Springs Airport and crewed the entire run, alongside another vehicle from South Australia, driven by supporters Peter and Ellis.

Brutal temperatures peaked around 45C early in the run.

“The heat made me slower than expected so I was out each day for longer than I thought I would be. I really didn’t mind the sand dunes, even the soft sand didn’t worry me at all. What I did mind was the rubble and the ankle breaking rocks on the road.”

“You don’t get any help out there if something goes wrong, but I didn’t even take a Panadol, the whole 10 days – no pain relief, nothing!”

Any escape from the heat, perhaps running under the moon?

“I did no running at night – too dangerous out there, no way in the world,” she says, matter-of-factly.

With the risk of snakes, even after sundown, the option of running in a cooler time of day just wasn’t available. There would have also been the added strain on the support crew of making and breaking camp – a laborious process of bedding, stoves, food and water preparation, and repacking vehicles – twice a day rather than once.

Jane (centre) with crew – Janet and Garry Tapper, Susan Griffen, Ellis, and Peter (on knee)

So how did she keep running day after day, and what was her routine?

“As soon as it got light I started running. There were a couple of days I finished running just as it was getting dark,” recalls Trumper. “And on the day I was running into Pirnie Bore the distance was inaccurate so I had Garry driving behind me with the lights on and it was dark when I got there.”

The most famous sand dune in the Simpson is named Nappanerica in the local dialect, but visitors just know the 40-metre high sand mountain near the Desert’s eastern boundary as Big Red.

“I didn’t actually have to run up Big Red but I decided because it was there I had to.”

While Trumper’s last attempt to cross the desert was stopped by fires, this time heavy rains nearly saw her adventure delayed by floods. The combination of mud and sand was enough to stop one of her support vehicles, forcing the other to tow it.

“There was an old Aboriginal guy there, up the top of Big Red. He said that in his lifetime he has never, ever seen water there like that, so yesterday we had to make a bit of a detour around that for the vehicles and run a bit further than expected.”

Climbing another of the Simpson’s more than 1200 dunes

Sand dunes aside, the greatest highs and lows in ultra marathon are usually deeply emotional and personal.

“I did this whole thing to raise money for Bear Cottage, rather than to see my name up in lights,” she muses. “The lows of the trip were probably when I was out there thinking about Bear Cottage and just realizing how lucky I am to have three healthy kids. I think there was more of that sort of emotion than ‘I can’t do it’.”

She also laughs about her time in the shifting red sands. “I don’t think there were any major highs, other than seeing the support vehicle up ahead with cold water – that was probably the best.”

running into a salt pan

The day after completing this epic challenge, how does she feel?

Today, she says she could easily go for a run, maybe a 10km, but warns that it would be slow. She’s returning home briefly at the end of the week, but only as a pitstop. With just a couple more races now until she reaches her 100th ‘standard’ marathon, she’s off this weekend to run the Canberra Marathon.

But, she warns, “that’ll be slow,” now laughing, “that’ll be very slow.”

See Jane’s blog at www.UltraSmall.wordpress.com. Please visit it to donate to Bear Cottage.

Awarefoot runner: the barefoot leap

The shod stand on one side of the river, gazing across the foaming abyss at the barefoot fraternity on the other.  So far, so bizarre.  Your colleagues on the shod side mock and degrade the lunatic fringe who are skipping along in their wacky sandals, minimalist shoes and, shock, completely bare feet.

Luna Sandals – for the uber minimalist traditionalist. IMAGE: Nathan Dyer

Most people at this point turn away and go back to trudging along in their heavily cushioned factory products, shutting out the possibility that something else could be possible.  Humans, it turns out, are incredibly reluctant to change which is no great surprise given that the majority of our species’ existence has been about feverishly protecting what we have from marauding neighbours and predators.  If you find yourself at this river however, inquisitively peering at the eccentrics preaching the joys of minimalist running maybe it’s time to have a dip in the river and see if you can make it to the other side, the domain of the barefoot runner.

The swim is not as long at it looks, nor as fearsome for the reality of barefoot running for most people will most likely end up being a weekly experiment in technique refining.  And despite what your orthotic pushing mileage obsessed mates may tell you, we are actually a welcoming and friendly crowd.  Some of us even have jobs.

There is one important thing to remember though. Beyond important thing actually.  Vital. Critical.  Take it slow.

Yes running forums are covered in threads from injured barefoot runners and barefoot running can be a pursuit that takes you towards the freezer in search of ice packs but only if you move too quick.  The jury is still firmly out on whether barefoot running will aid performance and lower your PBs but I am a believer in its ability to ward off injuries and, most importantly, clear the mind.  If somewhere, deep inside there, you run for fun, it is certainly worth a try.

Despite what the punters will have you believe, the goal is not to run barefoot but to run light.  Running light not only puts less impact on your legs it also makes you feel the earth and become more aware of every part of your running.  If running barefoot helps get you lighter then that is great, and it may well teach you some lessons to take back to your shod running technique.

So start slow.  Run around the block in a pair of minimalist shoes or, if you’re an Aussie and have grown up wearing thongs and ducking into the shops barefoot then you’re probably right to do a lap actually barefoot.  The next day run shod, then again the following tap out a circuit of the block and so on slowly, slowly building up the resistance.  This will give you a taste of the liberating feeling that barefoot running gives and even if you decide it’s not for you that slightly improved technique will bounce around in your subconscious while you are back in you shoes.  At the very least running barefoot around the block will turn you into the weird neighbour and you won’t have to listen to Mrs Cheetam on the corner complaining about what the weather does to her dodgy knee as now she’ll duck inside at the mere sight of you.

My introduction to barefoot running was laboriously slow.  I had to undo the damage a few decades worth of running shoes, orthotics, Dr Martens, hefty heeled work shoes and ski boots had done to the structural strength of my legs.  By the end of month two I was just cracking out 6km runs and it wasn’t until four months of sandal shod patrolling that I pushed it to 10kms.  Having said that, I never had the faintest twinge in all that time so may well have been able to push it a bit further but figured that the risk of yet another running injury was far from worth it.  Now, eighteen months down the track and two hour runs are a simple glide in my rubber sandals.

It is probably a positive enough sign that you are reading this.  It says that you are happy to at least glance across the river at all the gliding barefooters and ask yourself the question why.  The simplest level of curiosity is all it takes.  There is no need to go out and splurge on the latest minimalist shoe sent in from the designers of Tokyo as a pair of Dunlop Volleys will do the trick as an introduction.  Take it slow, be aware of what your feet and legs are telling you and, most importantly, free your mind.

– Garry Dagg, Trail Run Mag Barefoot/Minimalist Guru

As Trail Run Mag’s resident barefoot/minimalist sage, Garry Dagg will continue to write on issues, opinions, styles and techniques of barefoot/minimalist running. And he’ll test the bejesus (a sandal wearer) out of all and sundry modles now flooding the market. He’s on board not to convert, but to offer a perspective, much the same way our Shoe Guru, Simon Bright offers his. Agree or not, better to be aware, even if you’re not a fan of being bare. We welcome your opinions on the barefoot debate – fling them through on info@trailrunmag.com or Facebook them at www.facebook.com/trailrunmag. Garry will also write regularly on the topic online, so sign up for his blogs and news feeds at www.trailrunmag.com. Ed.


 

Magnetic pull of tropical trails

Melbournite and Associate TRM Editor, Pat Kinsella, heads north, to the tropical climes of Far North Queensland, where it’s perfect trails one day, stunning trails the next…mind the wildlife.

On my first day of trail running proper in Far North Queensland, I slammed my foot down about two inches from a brightly coloured snake that, thankfully, decided not to punish my clumsiness with a couple of poison-laced punctures.

We were running around Dunk Island (pictured right), an idyllic isle a short boat trip from Mission Beach. It would have been slightly less idyllic on that same date exactly one year earlier, when Cyclone Yasi screamed through the area, turning trees into twigs and reducing concrete and metal structures to dust and debris. I’ve seen pictures of the immediate aftermath and it looked like a war zone.

The island hasn’t fully bounced back yet  – many of the villas are still roofless and ragged, a lots of palm tree are headless – but vegetation grows quickly in the tropics and it is beautiful again, despite its scars. Maybe even a little bit sexier because of them.

People running this trail as part of the Ona Mission adventure race in September will aid the recovery effort still further, but when I was there the track hadn’t been used for at least 365 days, and it was pretty overgrown. Hence I didn’t see the snake and, for its part, the somnambulant serpent had become accustomed to sunbathing without fear of trampling.

Running with me was Richard Blanchette, the post-cyclone recovery officer for area. Richard, a fit Kiwi with a background in triathlon, had jumped at the chance to go and inspect part of his patch via a trail run. “What kind of snake was that?” I asked him. “Ah, deadly venomous, those ones,” he grinned. “But they don’t bite tourists…”

Encounters such as this are enough to keep you on your toes and enliven any trail run, and they’re not that unusual in this neck of the woods, where it’s easy to escape into the arms of true tropical wilderness after running just a few hundred metres from your front door. In fact, sometimes the wilderness comes to you – the previous evening Richard had recounted a story about rescuing one of his kid’s new pet kittens from the jaws of a three-metre python that had let itself into the family’s house in Mission Beach.

Also with me was Ben Southall, the English guy some people may remember as the winner of the World’s Best Job competition in 2009, when he scored a year-long gig working as the caretaker of the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Ben, who has since completed kayaking and diving trip along the length of the reef and who now works for Queensland Tourism, has enjoyed some pretty cool days in the office over the last few years, but he reckons he’s never happier than when he’s out running trails.

Around the very next corner the grin was momentarily wiped from his chops, however, when he nearly ran face first into a spider the size of a man’s hand that dangled in a monstrous web across the trail. There’s never a dull moment up here.

The second time I go trail running proper in Far North Queensland, I lose so much fluid from my body I don’t piss for 6 hours, despite constant attempts to keep rehydrated, and when I do have a squirt it looks like orange juice.

This time we were running around Magnetic Island in the middle of the Wet season. It was 6am and the humidity was unnerving – it felt like a warm, moist flannel was wrapped around my lungs. On this particular day bath-temperature rain was falling and it was so humid that it became hard to work out whether I was running or swimming. To add to the all-round moisture fest, I was sweating from parts of my body that I didn’t even realise had sweat glands on them.

And I loved every second of it. I was trail running in the Wet Tropics, where there are snakes bigger than me in the undergrowth and 5-metre crocs in some of the creeks. The air tastes and smells so different to home, and the singletrack wends through jungle. Real jungle. Within 15 minutes of running out of the door of my hotel, I was having a full-on adventure.

There’s nothing more exciting than running trails somewhere that is so utterly different to where you live, and this is as utterly different to suburban Melbourne as you can get.

It put its hooks in me, and I’ll be back for more. In fact, I’ll be back this very weekend, to have a crack at the Magnetic Island Adventurethon, an adventure race that involves 22km of trail running (plus 26km of ocean paddling, 29km of mountain biking and a whole lot of sweat and tears).

And that’s what happens when you end up in the pub while still on a post-run euphoric buzz, and you get dared to do something by the race organiser and ultra-enthusiastic running ambassador Ben Southall, who is also racing this weekend.

But I was easily press-ganged. The pull of the tropical trails was too strong to resist and I can’t wait to get back on that jungle singletrack to sweat it out.

Magnetic Island Adventurethon: 31 March–1 April, www.adventurethon.com.au

Ona Mission Adventure Race: 9 September 2012, www.adventuresportnq.info/events/multisport/onamission

Run Crazy: ultra runner Ray Sanchez

In only five years since discovering the sport of ultra running, three time Golden Glove boxer, Ray Sanchez, has fought his way from America’s mean streets, via the ring, to become one of the world’s most accomplished long run specialists. This year, he attempted to become only the second and the fastest man to finish La Ultra – The High, regarded as the world’s toughest footrace. Feature written by Chris Ord as first appeared in Men’s Fitness Magazine.

Sanchez in the first 42km of the 222km La Ultra – The High, heading up 5400 metre Khardung La pass in Kashmiri Himalayas, India.

“I’m just a nobody that runs crazy,” says ultra runner, 44 year-old Ray Sanchez, with a gleam in his eye that backs the argument.

“That’s why I like coming to these international races, in exotic places, because they treat me really well, like I’m somebody. Back home in the States, I’m still a nobody.”

Sanchez contemplates his invisible man predicament sitting atop a mud-packed roof overlooking the tiny Himalayan village of Khardung, a Buddhist outpost in Kashmir, India, that in winter is deserted by all owing to temperatures that drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Below us, fields of grain dance in the short-summer sun, the odd malnourished cow looks up, double checking that the many whitewashed temples dotted down the valley remain in place – as they have for hundreds of years. Looming over all is the imposing Ladakhi range, which harbours on its flanks the Chinese border and the Pakistan border along with its contentious ‘Line of Control’ over which India and its neighbour often clash. Just out of sight beyond a 6000-metre plus behemoth, is K2, the world’s second highest peak.

Today it’s a tranquil valley bowl, but 12 years ago this was in part the scene of the Kargil Conflict, a violent skirmish where Pakistan decided it wanted a little more of India than India would like to relinquish. Pakistan sent in a crack squad of separatist Kashmiri militants. As it transpired, they weren’t quite crack enough and were routed by the Indian Army in only three months.

In 24 hours the same valley will see the beginning of another monumental if short battle, one that may also end in tears and recriminations if not bloodshed (although there’s potential).

Ten kilometres down the rutted road, where Ray’s crazy eyes now roam from atop our roof perch, begins ‘La Ultra – The High’, a 222km footrace touted as the ‘toughest on the planet”. It’s undoubtedly the highest. Competitors – all seven of them on invitation-only entries – will start at around 4000 meters, the height we’ve been acclimatizing at for the last day or so, before running a marathon distance to top out on Khardung La pass, known (slightly disingenuously) as the world’s highest motorable pass at 5400 metres. They then run back down to a ‘low’ point of 3600metres before a second thigh-thrashing ascent up Tanglang La, also approaching 5400 metres. 

That’s the highest label accounted for. The ‘toughest’ tag line can be attributed to three things. First is the fact that these are ‘motorable passes’ which means a constant stream of fume-spewing army and cargo trucks grunting up on narrow, rough dirt roads and driven by locals who have little care for the safety of mad western runners plodding alongside. They give no quarter.

Then there is the fact that this race needs to be conquered by sucking on diesel-scented air containing an average of 40% less oxygen than you’ll find at sea level. At the top of the two passes, runners’ lungs will have to contend with only 33% partial oxygen as compared to sea level.

Finally there is the ever-present risk of altitude sickness, which can lead to High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) and High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) – and death, as drastically demonstrated by at least three unwary tourists in the weeks leading up to this race who flew home in body bags.

While none of the three inaugural runners died in the first edition of the race last year, there were some hairy moments. American Molly Sheridan only conquered 130km before being forced to retire, while her friend and co-competitor Bill Andrews was rushed to hospital earlier in the piece.

Race director, Rajat Chauhan admits that when he checked in on his sole survivor, Mark Cockbain, ascending the second pass, even he, as a qualified sports doctor, couldn’t tell if his only remaining competitor was entering the dreaded death zone. Mark didn’t know where he was or why he was running; he was hallucinating and kept running off the dirt road, straight towards cliff edges. Rajat made the tough call to leave Mark out on course, the respected ultra runner eventually beating extreme fatigue and the onset of altitude sickness to top Tanglang La and troop down the final 30km to a finish in the middle of nowhere. In doing so, he become the first and only person to have completed La Ultra.

This year’s event was never meant to happen. On the back of the first experience, Rajat decided it was too tough an ask. If a known hardass like Cockbain seriously struggled, what hope was there for anyone else? No competitor would want to race something that was likely to kill them. But he hadn’t reckoned on Molly Sheridan’s determination to finish what she’d started. She hounded until Rajat agreed to host the race once more, and the pair set about vetting potential runners. More were rejected than accepted.

“Runners couldn’t just have completed some difficult ultras, they had to have completed many, and the toughest ones, to even be considered.”

Kiwi Lisa Tamati was a shoe-in: known mostly for desert running, the asthmatic has completed the Marathon de Sables twice, multiple Badwaters (hottest ultra), races in the Gobi, the Sahara, Niger and Libyan Desert, plus had run the length of her own country (2,200km).

Lisa recommended Aussie Sam Gash, with whom she ran alongside in the Racing The Planet desert ultras. Sam is the only female and the youngest person ever to finish all four of RTP’s Four Deserts editions, some of the toughest in the world.

Jason Rita, an Aussie expat living in the States has concentrated on many 100 milers in North America including the notorious Leadville 100 along with races in the Himalayas, including a 3rd in the Everest Challenge Marathon. As the only runner without his own sponsor-splashed website or blog, he is the unknown quantity, but undoubtedly tough as nails. Tick.

Another ex-pat Aussie, Cath Todd based out of Dubai, has run enough 100-milers to get the nod.

Sharon Gayter is the world record holder for 24-hour running: 226km. She’s also conquered the Badwaters and Libyan Challenges of the world, and run the length of Britain besides (establishing the official John O’Groats to Lands End run route). Not just in, but a potential winner.

Then there is Ray Sanchez. Our contender.

Early in his career the farthest Ray Sanchez would run – when competing – was about ten feet. He was quick, flighty even – it was all dash and crash a fist into his opponent. From one end of the boxing ring to the other he darted, chasing opponents to a knockout demise, of which he inflicted enough to claim three Golden Gloves titles. That put him, at least when he donned the gloves as a young amateur 1991-96, in Olympic trials contention and on the same path as the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and the Great One, Ali who all got their start in Golden Gloves tournaments.

He fought in the ring because, having grown up on the meaner streets of Sacramento on the US West Coast, and one of ten siblings, brawling was what he knew how to do. Smaller than his many brothers he fought harder. And won. Then there was the regular carousing of the local African American gang who seemed to take cultural exception to Ray’s Latino roots, the resulting pitched battles on his front lawn, occasionally extending beyond fisticuffs to realms of gunslinging. First it was the gangs toting steel, but when a slug just missed his sister, it was Ray’s brother who returned fire with more accuracy, knocking one down for the count forever.

Ray was a fighter long before he donned the gloves. The transition to contender was all about channeling the rage, according to his mentor, wrestling coach Mike Stockton (in the early days Ray tussled on the mat as well as in the ring).

“I was a complete brawler. I love to bang and brawl,” says Ray.  “I think I now run the same way.  My friend Jimmy Freeman says I don’t really run until I have been punched in the lip.” 

To Ray it was also about learning how to fight better. Didn’t matter if someone was bigger or badder, you just fought bigger and badder and harder. And then you held on for longer. He fought well back then, but by his own admission no battle bruised him as much as the one for his daughters.

The three-time divorcee quit fighting in the ring so he could fight for custody in the courts. As is his way, he won in what he regards as the toughest battle of his life.

He’s had others outside the ring: the battle to educate himself, to drag himself out of the Sacramento gutters where the potential to slither into a jail sentence was all too overwhelming.

“I was a bad man,” Ray admits. “I did bad things. But then I looked around, looked at my neighbourhood, my friends and family, the drugs, the violence, the prison stretches, the poverty…I wanted something different.”

The journey for Ray was longer than any of his ultras will ever be. He lost the way a few times (something he’s famous for come race day), but kept on going. He brought up his daughters, put them through university, gained his mechanical engineering qualifications and now holds down a career at a Sacramento hospital.

“The shifts work well with my running,” says Ray. “I work hard, then I run hard.”

It’s an understatement. Ray runs a ridiculous amount. Too much, other ultra marathoners believe.

Since taking up running in 2006 – prompted by a workmate’s suggestion and curiosity – he’s completed hundreds of races, most of them ‘ultras’ (anything longer than a marathon). But the real kudos for Ray came when he knocked off the supposedly impossible grand slam of ultra running. Dubbed the BAD 135 World Cup it involves finishing each of the three hardest 135-mile (217km) ultras in one year, those being the Brazil, Arrowhead (Minnesota, US) and Death Valley (Badwater, US) races. It was a feat the pundits considered impossible given the punishment completing just one ultra doles out to your body, let alone doing three in a period of six months. Worse, Arrowhead – regarded as the hardest due to the freezing temperatures, snow and the fact you lug a sled behind you – is only days following the Brazilian opener. No one had ever attempted it. Last year, Ray accomplished it.

Thus Ray Sanchez was a no-brainer inclusion on the La Ultra entry list.

On the starting line, Ray is oblivious to the fact he is standing on the famed Silk Road, an ancient route for camel traders shipping goods between ancient cultures. His lean, muscled body is champing to attack the first 42 kilometres up Khardung La. While others openly admit their best if doubtful hope is just to finish, Ray is here to win. He won’t admit it – he’ll tell you he’s here for fun. Or perhaps for the charity he runs for, one that totes the ‘Be Change’ slogan on his shirt to raise money for underprivileged schools and health programs back in his poverty-soaked Sacramento neighbourhood. From bad man beginnings, there is no doubt that Ray is now a good man. He’s also one that can’t keep still, the energy effervescent in a stream of banter that bounces off the anxious competitors and crew.

As the dawn light cracks crisply over the Himalayas, six runners trot off (Catherine Todd pulls the pin three days prior, the altitude and pollution plaguing her lungs and ebullient confidence enough to head home to Dubai before the rest headed to the acclimatization camp). Ahead there are some knowns: pain, fatigue, delirium, sleepmonsters, cramps, and 222km of mind searing doubt. According to the other racers there is one more known: it will be Ray and Sharon out front in a battle more epic than the Kashmir conflict.

The pair don’t disappoint off the mark, screaming ahead as though they weren’t at 4000 metres; as though they weren’t running uphill constantly for the next 42km; as though the passing trucks were blowing pine fragranced enriched oxygen, rather than plumes of lung clogging carbon (especially problematic for Sharon, an asthmatic); which leaves race organizers to wonder: are they insane? Have they totally underestimated these massive mountains, which do not take kindly to be treated with disrespect? Have they forgotten the altitude? And, for the sake of event insurance: are they running to their death?
As it happens, no. Not yet. Both breach Khardung La in just over six hours. Behind them, Jason Rita plugs away at a more realistic pace, Lisa Tamati’s stomach ejects a pot of noodles, Sam Gash also struggles with nutrition, and Molly, as the only one who actually comprehends what’s ahead, plays safe, plodding along at a pace that risks nothing bar missing the cut off times.

Everyone expects Ray to go fast. No-one expects him to pull out a three hour lead on Sharon and pretty much run unimpeded down the mountain, through the Indus valley, past Buddhist Monasteries, alongside the Indus River and finally to the last checkpoint, Rumtse, and the 100 mile (160km) mark. He’d blazed up the course in just 22 hours.

Then a wall called Tanglang La hit the ex-boxer like a crushing right hook. From Rumtse it’s a 1300 vertical metre climb over barely 20 kilometres of potholed road. Runners already have 170km of lead in their legs. The air is thin, the lungs looking for redundancy payouts, preferably in the currency of oxygen withdrawn from the Bank of Lower Altitude.

It’s enough to drive men – even supermen – to hallucinations. I say men, because at this stage, Ray is shattered and scattered, and the medics who roam the course are worried, whereas Sharon is in pain, her asthma causing chaos, but at least she’s lucid. Her pace tells the story: it’s taking 20 minutes to cover one kilometre, something that would usually take her four minutes. Even so, she is catching Ray who has started to do the John Wayne: a wide-stance gait that heralds the onset of HACE.

As the medics force him to take rest, Sharon passes him to take the lead only three kilometres over Tanglang La’s hump. Ray is oblivious to the loss.  He’s gone from battling demons of the distance to a battle of wills with the medics trying to keep him alive.

But he’s a fighter, remember? And no medic is going to pull him off the canvas.

Down the hill he weaves, eventually reaching the final plateau where one final incident plays out, showing just how punch-drunk Ray is.

Concerned about Ray’s state of mind and body, one of the race organisers, Khanal, approaches. Ray – the trauma of the race transporting him back to one of the biggest fights of his life, perhaps on a day in the front yard of his childhood when a crew of African Americans are teaching him how to really endure pain – turns on his concerned minder: “Who the hell are you! Get the f@#k away from me!” And he runs. Unfortunately it is in the wrong direction. 

Eventfully Ray clams enough to reorientate and cross the line in 39 hours and 3 minutes, a phenomenal effort that beats Mark Cockbain’s original 48 hour 51 minute race time. Even so, Ray Sanchez is, as they say, ‘chicked’, Gayter taking line honours in 37 hours 34 minutes. He was beaten by a woman, one older than him, no less. For a bad, crazy man from Sacramento, it is a hard pill to swallow.

“I’ll be back next year, and I’m going to break the record, and run it in under 30 hours.”

He’s also looking to finish all five of the world’s major 135-mile races – Brazil, Arrowhead, Europe, Badwater and La Ultra – in 2012.

Always aiming for the impossible, that’s our Ray.

And just to show that running 222km isn’t enough, he backs up the day after completing the La Ultra main event, lining up for – and winning – the La Ultra marathon, a 42km warm down in the Himalayas. Crazy.

POSTSCRIPT: All six finished the second edition of La Ultra The High in the cut off time of 60 hours.  Other runner times were: Jason Rita in 45 hours 55 minutes, Lisa Tamati in 53 hours 05 minutes, Samantha Gash in 58 hours 15 minutes, and Molly Sheridan finished what she started two years ago, in 58 hours 56 minutes. www.thehigh.in.

Head Coach: trail running mind games

It’s cliché enough to warrant inclusion in those ‘Sh#! Ultra Runners Say’ videos doing the YouTube rounds: “You’re gonna hurt after 50-kays no matter what. After that, it’s all in your head.”

Even on shorter trail dashes, you’re bound to hit a wall or two. So how do you push through the brain barrier? Can you condition your mind into faster times and longer distances? Yes you can, says Trail Run Mag’s resident sport psychology guru, Greg Layton …

”

Gobi March 2008: Alone, with the sun setting behind me in the cooling desert after what has seemed like an endless 80 km, I stumble on – wanting, hoping, dreaming of an end to this 250 km punishment. My mind is on the edge of delirium, my feet are screaming and my tongue is so dry it is pasted to my palette.

An antagonistic internal voice baits me; mocking my effort, mocking my reasons for being here and giving me the ever-present and increasingly more attractive option of quitting. But I carry on –jogging, marching, anything but stopping.

If you’ve been through an experience like this, you’ll have also faced the question from friends and strangers: “Why do you do it?”

Instead of responding with the old, “If you have to ask you’ll never know,” I tell people that I do it because it pushes me into new territory, because it makes me a better man, because it helps me get away from it all and centre myself. I tell them that race experiences are unique and, quite simply, unforgettable.

The truth is, when I started running ultras I didn’t know why I did it other than to prove to myself that I could. In the beginning, my goals were simply to finish select events, but within a year this had changed. I realised I could do any race at all if I was prepared to do the training and stay motivated. And to do this, I had to explore beyond simply ticking off another training session.

Be you a weekend warrior or an elite athlete, goal setting is critical to success. The old saying springs to mind, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.”

Sport psychologists have proven time and again that if you don’t have a clear vision of yourself reaching your end goal then the chances of you succeeding are significantly reduced.

No doubt you’ve heard of the concept of ‘SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) goals’. Valuable though it is to have a SMART framework to your planning, I’ve found these methods just aren’t enough to prepare you for truly life changing, mind-set shifting, performance-smashing goals.

To help you achieve your trail running targets we’ve outlined here some of the most important aspects of setting extraordinary goals:

[NB: There is a Goal Setting Template which works well with the video above].

 Goal Setting Tip #1 – Make ‘em big

According to Anthony Robbins, the renowned American life coach, it’s critical to set big goals that you deem to be truly amazing. Big goals push you to a whole new level and the attraction of achieving them must be genuinely compelling. Become a child again: Remove the adult limitations and just dream. Ask yourself, “What do I really want if I can have anything?”

Goal Setting Tip #2 – Dream ‘em big

The next important step is to imagine what it will be like to achieve your goal. Where will you be? What will it feel like? Who will be present and what will it sound like? By creating this rich vision in your head you’re creating a neural blueprint in a way that is compelling and clear.

Goal Setting Tip #3 – Check the consequences

Sometimes setting out with a big goal can negatively impact other aspects of your life. Your relationships at home, performance in the office or study and other pursuits can slide down your priority list. This is why it’s important that you define not just ‘what’ you are going to do but also ‘how’.

Ask yourself: “If I aim for this goal, what are the likely consequences of my going for it?” To minimise the potentially negative side-effects of your goal chasing, consider adjusting the time frames for achieving it, the training schedule that is necessary or the ways that you plan to incorporate your family and friends into the training regime. Designing a pathway to your goal that is congruous with your other priorities will keep you motivated and create an even more compelling end goal.

Goal Setting Tip #4 – Find ‘The Way’

OK, your goal is now reasonably well formed but it’s the execution that really counts. One excellent way to achieve big running goals is to set a series of smaller targets along the way that weave-in local events and even some bigger, exciting events abroad. An example would be:

  1. April 2012 – First marathon, 42 km
  2. June 2012 – First  >50 km
  3. November 2012 – First  >80 km
  4. January 2012 – First  >100 km
  5. March 2013 – First multi stage ultra >160 km

This progression allows you to always have an event on the horizon. You’ll enjoy the process of preparing for competition and will have performed quite a few times before your big race. It will increase confidence, keep you focused, increase enjoyment through the growth of your social circle, and when you achieve your ultimate goal, helps you look back to track your success.

Goal Setting Tip #5 – Define mini-goals like an athlete

For each goal it’s critical to set out the performance targets, resources and training you’ll need for each of the following:

  • Physical Conditioning
  • Technique
  • Tactics
  • Mental Performance
  • Life Balance

For each mini-goal, list what needs to be achieved in each of these categories and how you’re going to get there. 

Goal Setting Tip #6 – Review regularly

When Apollo 11 was on the way to the moon it was only directly on target two per cent of the time. It can be the same with your progress week to week in achieving goals. Sometimes, you’ll miss a session because of an injury or rest and this is quite normal. The trick is to review your progress every week. Check off how you’re progressing with achieving each of your mini targets and ensure that you are constantly moving towards your goal.

Goal Setting Tip #7 – Celebrate and recover

After achieving each of your mini-goals ensure that you celebrate in your own way and spend some time away from trail running fully recovering. Refresh and renew yourself for a period, then revisit your goal setting workbook, review and plan your next mini goal and get back into it.  

Goal Setting Tip #8 – Bow to peer pressure

Sometimes one of the most effective methods for ensuring you stick to your guns is to tell family, friends and colleagues what you are planning. Even better, get them involved in helping you. Of course, be selective about who you’ll employ to help you; make sure they’ll be the type to get right behind you the whole way.

Goal Setting Tip #9 – Learn from the greats

John Grinder, the co-founder of the performance psychology known as neuro-linguistic programming or NLP, believes that one of the most effective methods of achieving anything is to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants.’ This means to follow the paths of those who have gone before you. A powerful enabler is to ask yourself the following questions: “Has anyone done this before?” and “If they were here, what advice would they give me?” Find the books, interviews, or films that can teach you the experiences of those in whose footsteps you are following. If you can track any of them down, get some tips from the horse’s mouth. 

Goal Setting Tip #10 – Greatness is in your head

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” – Marianne Williamson

Too right! Every one of us has experienced a time in our life when we were truly powerful; in a state that was resourceful, unstoppable, confident and just plain uber. Achieving greatness is simply a pathway that lies before you. If you don’t think you’re ready or have some deep limiting belief then I’ll leave you with two questions:

  1. “What are you pretending to believe to be true in order to think you can’t achieve your dreams?”
  2. “What is not stopping you?”

Now, trail time …

Trail Run Mag’s ‘Head Coach’, Greg Layton is the founder and managing director of NeuroSport, a high performance consultancy that provides the blueprint for building sporting success through mental approach with lessons taken from the world’s most successful teams, the corporate world and high performance psychology. His programs deliver customised high performance coaching and training. And he’s run a lot: learn more about Greg at neurosport.com.au

 

Inov-8 X-Talon 190

It seems obligatory at the start of any positive shoe review to say something like “great shoe, but it won’t make you run faster”. 

For the X-Talon 190, this statement simply doesn’t apply, and for the trained runner, this shoe will support faster running.  Offering stunning grip through an aggressive outsole and touted by Inov-8 as the world’s lightest cross-country and mountain racer, the X-Talon 190 has everything required to deliver great speed.

To get the weight down to a feather-light 190g (for a UK8 shoe), the upper is absolutely minimalist.  The majority of the upper is a mesh material which offers excellent drainage and means that the feet don’t get hot, but the level of foot protection is, like the rest of the shoe, extremely minimal.  The toe bumper feels like a layer of thick paint applied over the mesh, and while some minimal protection against vegetation is offered, the protection against rocks and sticks present in most trail shoes is missing.

In terms of protection and bounce, the most generous assessment of the 190s midsole is that it does exist (and that is saying something – check out the forthcoming review of the Bear Grip 200s which are built sans-insole).  The mid-sole thickness at the toe is 10mm, increasing slightly to 13mm at the heel, which equates to an Inov-8 rating of 1-arrow (3mm).   The very thin mid-sole can be a problem on rocky trails – trail running authority ‘Rod the Hornet’ (he knows what he’s talking about, trust us, but doesn’t want to use his real name) on CoolRunning comments on the CoolRunning thread on this shoe: “Wore them at 6ft this year and went about as hard as I could go. I loved the lightweight feel of them. I must say I had a major problem with stone bruising thru the heel, to the point that 4 weeks after the event was still tender. Would recommend if you are new to these, invest in a pair of gel inserts. I bought a good insert and it takes the edge off the hard trail.” 

Trialling these shoes in fast race conditions where dainty foot placement wasn’t a priority, similar under foot bruising to Rod was experienced, and following his advise on gel inserts, the bruising issue was markedly reduced.  Quality gel inserts from Scholls are available at most chemists for around $25.

The grip of the X-Talons is their defining feature.  Offering moulded studs similar to a touch football boot, the outer sole is made of a sticky rubber that grips extremely well on well on all surfaces from metal walk-ways through to mud, pavement and rock.  The Inov-8 marketing material remarks that the “shoes use our exclusive sticky rubber compound which has been specially developed using climbing rubber technology.  This rubber optimizes grip in wet conditions, however the trade off is it wears down quicker.”

The honest assessment from Inov-8 that notes the faster wear of the outer sole applies to the overall shoe.  It would be easy to rip the upper on a sharp rock, and an entanglement with a vine while trialling the shoes in the Inov-8 Coastal Classic separated the top lip of the outer off the toe bumper.  A quick super-glue repair job rendered the shoes as good as new, but after a few hundred kilometres, it is evident that a life of around 500km maximum would be a reasonable expectation.  This isn’t a harsh criticism – the design purpose of the shoe as an extremely fast, lightweight racer is delivered on in full, and the fact that life as a general trainer is limited is hardly unexpected.

Race conditions offer the best test grounds for any trail shoe.  After running the inaugural 2010 Coastal Classic in 3.13, dipping under 3 hours this year was a stretch goal for me, and wearing the X-Talon 190, a final time of 2.54.52 was achieved.  While cooler conditions and plenty of training went into the improvement, the lightening-fast Talon 190 were a meaningful contributor to this improvement.

Great For: Anything fast – races, tempo runs, fartlek.  The grip is awesome, and handles all conditions well – mud, exposed rock, metal walkways, pavement.

Not So Great For:  Up to marathon distance would be OK, but for longer distances, a shoe with more under-foot and toe protection is recommended.  With a 3mm drop, Achilles tendon issues are possible for runners not accustomed to minimalist offerings.  On very rocky trails with sharp rocks, under-foot bruising can be an issue.

Test Conditions: Road, mixed trail and road, fire-trail, technical trail with mud and slippery rock conditions, ~400km.  Race tested in the Inov-8 Coastal Classic (30km) and the In2Adventure 8km Trail Race.

Tester: Nick Wienholt – ultra-trail runner based in Sydney’s southern suburbs, Nick recently completed three of Australia’s toughest trail ultras (Bogong to Hotham, Cradle Mountain and The North Face 100), highlighted by a finish in the top 40 at The North Face that included a silver buckle.  He plans to dedicate the spring to short-distance events like the marathon.

Tester mechanics: Mid-weight (74kg) experienced trail runner with neutral pronation and fore-foot strike.

www.barefootinc.com.au
www.inov-8.com/


RRP: $169.95
Distributor/ Stockist: Barefoot Inc or Adventure MegaStore Sydney and specialty running outlets.

 

Feel the (North) Burn

Co-organiser and Trail Run Mag insider, Lisa Tamati, previews this weekend’s Northburn 100. Keep an eye out for regular updates from Lisa throughut the weekend on www.facebook.com/trailrunmag and www.twitter.com/trailrunmag.

The Northburn 100 is getting closer. Team Salomon has a top crew coming as is my Stateside friend, Ray Sanchez, who I ran with the in the Himalayas last August in La Ultra – The High race. He is definitely a contender.

Tracey Woodford is also back and I tip her to be on top again all going to plan.

The Northburn100 came about after Glen Christiansen from the Golden Gate Resort invited me down to give a talk one night in the town of Cromwell. I fell in love with the region and Glen and I were brewing up race plans within minutes. I had been looking for a place to run a 100mile event and had planned to do it in Taranaki, my home town (but someone beat me to it).

Then, Glen spoke to keen endurance athlete Tom Pinckney, owner of the gorgeous Northburn Station and the race was born. Tom and I set up our own company and the rest is history. Last year’s event was fantastic and very successful. We tried our best to make everyone very welcome and to provide an amazing running experience. My goal was to have the toughest 100 miler in the southern hemisphere and I believe I have made it. We got awarded 4 qualification points for Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the highest amount available giving Kiwis and Aussies a chance to qualify.

This race is extremely tough… the ascent for the 100 miler is over 8000 metres – the equivalent of going from sea level to nearing the top of Mt Everest. So a key is starting out really gently and slowly and consistency is the key, not stopping at the very comfortable check points too long.

The fact that we have three different loops which all go through the main vineyard check point with lots of food and supporters is brilliant but makes it also hard to leave on round two or three. The longer you dally, the harder it is.

The other key is not to tear downhill and shake the hell out of your legs too early; they will be shaking messes by the end no matter. Also, keeping as warm and dry as possible (don’t try ditching the required equipment, you could pay for that very heavily. Last year we had 100km/hr winds and sideways sleet – it was violent). If the weather turns to shit up on the top range it can be very frightening and we have a set up a great network of support for the night sections and have spared no expense with our medical team and 4wd drive ambulance, helicopter on call, doctors etc, as we want our competiotrs to have a great adventure but to be safe as well. That is our priority.

So my key advice: start out slow and taper off, take it gentle on the down hills for those quads and walk the steep ups (you won’t have a choice probably). And don’t stop for long periods. You are in a race;  a long, long race and the pressure has to remain on if you are to get through this mammoth challenge.

And make sure you have a top headlamp or three for the night – it can be as black as the inside of a cow up there. The toughest bits of the race are the ‘loop of despair’, just when you think you should be flat for a while, it goes down, down, down and round and round before finally getting back to top camp. Then there is the water race which is technically very tricky.

We are pleased with the amount of international competitors this year and hope to attract more Kiwis and Aussies (you’re not international, really!) next time. Unfortunately we clash a bit timewise with the fabulous Tarawera Ultra so we will try and do something about that for the future.

This remains, however, a challenge of champions and anyone who starts it in my opinion is a gutsy person and a winner. And those who finish? Bloody tough and bloody lucky.

Northburn100, 24 – 26 March 2012, Cromwell, NZ

northburn100.co.nz/

NB: so this is a race that the woman who ran the length of New Zealand, and ran and finished the toughest footrace on the planet in La Ultra The High, is happy to organise but won’t run? This is one tough puppy people… Keep watch also for Gordi Kirkbank Ellis, having another crack despite bad knees…. Ed.