“I started running at primary school, somewhat reluctantly, doing the required cross-country. And being at a small Fiordland school, if there was a sports team for anything, you sort of all have to play, just to make up the numbers!
Both my parents did the first Kepler Challenge and I remember “running” with Dad while he was training and trying to keep up with him… as much as an eight year old can. Around that time there was also a local run/bike event that went from Manapouri to Te Anau. You’d be in teams of two where you’d leap frog one another, leaving your bike on the side of the road and then start running. That would have been my first race but I didn’t really run again after I left school. I did spend my youth volunteering for the Kepler Challenge though; amazed at how people could possibly run that far and never once believing that I could do it myself.
Years later I worked for DOC on the Milford Track, essentially chasing whio (blue duck) up and down a river. That kept me pretty fit as I was always on my feet a lot, hiking and climbing hills. So I decided to enter the Luxmore Grunt, essentially with no training, aside from chasing ducks. I did the Luxmore Grunt two years in a row and I did all right. And then I just stopped running again, for about fifteen years.
It was during the Covid lockdown that I took it up again properly. Mostly because there was nothing else to do, you couldn’t go anywhere. I’d sort of tried to get back into running a few times, but I’d always injure myself early on because I’d go out too far, too fast, too soon. So lockdown was a good opportunity to do it right and I made a plan to take it slow. I even found a ‘couch to 5k’ plan and (mostly) stuck to it. But then they let us out of lockdown and I sort of just bolted! I found all the trails close to home on the Wild Things website and it ballooned out of control quite quickly. I was like “how many trails can I tick off?” I live in Christchurch with the Port Hills on my doorstep – so it turns out there’s a lot!
I found another training plan online and decided to train for the Motatapu Marathon. Unfortunately it was cancelled because of Covid, so I ran a 42km loop around Lyttleton Harbour. I just thought “I wonder if I can”. And I could, although it was a bit of a sufferfest. (I also had to because it was the only way to get back to the car!).
Why did I run? I think I just really enjoyed the freedom of being out of the house and in nature. I don’t know, it’s quite relaxing… as much as it can hurt at times. And I think for me, those mental health benefits you get from being outside, moving and having time to think were really important. And I love a challenge – I’m very badge orientated. If there’s a way of gamifying something, you’ve got me! And ticking off as many trails as I could had me hooked.
I’d listen to podcasts on my runs and there was an episode on Dirt Church Radio that stuck with me. Madeleine Collins from Auckland had done a challenge during lockdown where she ran an 8km loop in January… and then she ran it twice in February, three times in March, four times in April, continuing on like that for a whole year, finally running twelve loops in December. That challenge really appealed to me; that kind of incremental, increasing suffering, a ‘I don’t know if this thing is possible’ kind of thing. I didn’t jump on it right away, but doing something similar was always in the back of my mind.
Then my Aunt Joan passed away from younger onset dementia a couple of years ago. Dementia Canterbury, a support network for patients and their families, had been a really useful resource for her and her family, and so I decided to try and raise some money for them in memory of my Aunt, to give back for all that they did. My Uncle Pete had ridden the length of New Zealand as a fundraiser and I still had this Madeleine Collins idea mulling around in my head. So I decided it was an opportunity to amalgamate these two ideas; raise some cash for Dementia Canterbury, and set myself a fun challenge… well, type two fun.
For my “Adventure for Dementia”, I settled on a 5km loop in the Port Hills, known as the “Pipeline of Pain”. It just sounds so appealing, doesn’t it. It has 490 metres of climbing over that 5km. The plan was I’d run one loop in January, two in February, three times in March, all the way through to December. The final run in December was 62 kilometres with 5,780 metres elevation. Okay it’s not really a run, it was basically straight up the gas pipeline, then it was too steep to run down the other side really, and then it was into another steep up and down. December’s 12 loops took me 18 hours to complete.
I was so fortunate to have a whole lot of community support around me for this. I did the single January lap by myself because I hadn’t told anyone what or why I was doing it, and I didn’t know yet if it was even possible. But people slowly found out and basically every lap thereafter people would join me. One guy Ken, who at the time I didn’t really know, joined me in May and he did all five laps with me. Then he came back for June, July, August, right through to December. I did 78 laps in total and Ken did 68. We’re quite good mates now, after spending a lot of time and suffering together. Heaps of other people that I’d never met before joined in for laps too. Some people got wind of it and drove from miles away to be a part of it. Some people just wanted to come and challenge themselves on the Pipeline track, and some came because they had a dementia connection.
I/We raised $13,000 for Dementia Canterbury – very stoked!! That was nine months ago now. I still like running, but I didn’t run for some months afterwards. I was a tad broken, but I learnt that it’s possible… that it’s absolutely possible… you just have to be stubborn, keep moving…. and remember to eat!
I do want to know what more I am capable of. I don’t feel like I’ve hit the limit yet, maybe because I haven’t failed. I feel like there’s more. I’ve got a miler on my list, another Backyard Ultra maybe.
My advice, just go and do it I reckon. If you don’t get out there and give it a go you’ll never know what’s possible!”
Amy @amy_goes_adventuring
(Christchurch)
Photo taken in Te Anau
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