Will the Goat go ahead?

A good post-work run today. I'm having to savor these runs, as I know they could get less frequent in the near future with impending fatherhood. Today's run was a little shorter than  I would have ideally liked, having been held up at work talking to a patient's family, but I got a good hour along an old farm path out the back of Palmerston North: again another one of those little known tracks through native bush, for the most part along a pretty little stream, then up a gravel road through farmland. At one point a Kereru flew right in front of me, gave me a bit of a fright!

The big running news out of today though, I assume, is with the eruption of Tongariro, and how that might effect the Goat Alpine Adventure Race next weekend, especially in light of the increased eruption risk on Ruapehu. I ran this race last year, and it's a great experience! Harsh volcanic landscape, mud up to your knees (and I was an early starter!), cold river crossings, I thoroughly enjoyed the first 18 km of it! I felt I was flying, but of course reality bit when I hit a section of climb, a hundred or so vertical metres straight up a waterfall! I never before this moment had realised the harsh possibilities of getting cramps in four opposing muscle groups at once, and the last 3km were a struggle to keep one foot in front of the other. I was delighted to finally scrape home just under three hours, and headed (of course) straight to the beer tent for rehydration needs! Needless to say I was delighted to find that former All Black legend Ian Jones had had exactly the same experience with unfortunately timed cramps as me, with a very similar time.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have been unable to enter this year. The timing of a major life event has meant that my aim of beating my time by a good 15-20 minutes will have to wait another year at least. Hopefully 300 others will get the chance to try and achieve their aims (and maybe Mark Richardson and Ian Jones) in 10 days time. And I hope to be back again next year, this time with an extra supporter to wait to greet me at the end!