“I’ve been running for 10 years, definitely to the month, if not to the week. The reason it’s a specific date and I remember is because it was almost to the day that I entered the Luxmore Grunt. So that’s how I know and I remember when I started running.
Why? At that time I had a few different things all happened at once. A big one was that I went from a field active position and I ended up doing a lot more of an office-based role. I was becoming a manager and at the same time we ended up going through a restructure at work, which was really stressful. And we were building a house – so we had sold our house and we were living in a shed during our new build. Heidi was pregnant with our second child too. So I just had a lot going on.
If you really want to know the pivotal moment… I was in a meeting and I was carrying more weight than now, and I was swinging back on a chair and I broke the chair. And I was like, well that probably shouldn’t happen!
Then, through work I’d been doing the track briefings for the Kepler Challenge and the Luxmore Grunt. I was going along, seeing all the runners, giving them the briefing on the park and volunteering during the race. I thought, you know, maybe I should just have a run. I thought, “I could do the Luxmore Grunt and see how that goes”. So I entered the following year and started training.
Like a lot of people I started with a hiss and a roar for the first four weeks. My first two or three runs and walks were pretty uncomfortable, but I was doing alright… and then I just picked up an injury, a hip injury, straight away. So I went and actually got a plan around strengthening and how to be able to run a little bit more. That got me to the Luxmore Grunt!
I still found the race really daunting. If you’re not a runner, you just have this image of really fit people that are just going to be blowing past you, lots of flash gear and stuff. I think I had a day pack from hunting with a big-ish raincoat. But I went and did it. I got through it and I didn’t die. It was really good to finish.
Then I’d probably put it in the box of, yeah done that, never again! But… through the Kepler event I won another entry – into the ‘Stump the Hump’. So down I went and walked the Stump the Hump which is a fundraiser for the Humpbridge track. That was a 70 kilometre non-competitive overnight thing, and when that was done I left it for a while, for maybe six months.
Eventually those thoughts returned and said “I think I want to run a marathon”, so I trained for that and I did the Motatapu Off-Road Marathon. And because I’d done a lot of cross training as prep, after that race someone I know said “would you like to think about doing GODZone with us?”
So I did.
My first GODZone was with a group of really different people, and I really enjoyed it, so I thought I’d put a local team together for the next one. My hunting mate Jade had been doing a bit of running and he was really keen so he jumped in. It suited us, it’s more like hunting with the navigation and that hard-fought backcountry stuff. It was really good and I did a few of those before looking for something different again to try. Coast to Coast – I did that a couple of times; the one and two day events – and a whole lot of other different running and biking and races.
Now I’m still chipping away. It’s a bit of an ebb and flow for running. You have to be realistic about how much time you can put aside for it – and you know, I’m not a spring chicken so I’m also managing injuries, the training load on my body, work, home life, keeping family involved. Some years are busier and some years aren’t. Right now I’m signed up for the Kepler Challenge in December which will be good! I’ve done the Grunt a couple of times and this will be my first loop. Then we’ll just go from there really.
I have no wish to stop…. Because rest is rust and motion is lotion!”
Grant Tremain
(Te Anau)
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Portraits of Runners + their stories
@RunnersNZ
