September 2009: The Kinloch Half Marathon

By Gerard van de Ven

The organisers of the Lake Taupo half marathon have come up with a new idea this year. And from a commercial point of view it seems like quite a clever idea. It is the 63.3 club: Do 3 halves in 3 months:

• The Brooks Off-Road Half Marathon, 12 July. This is a run/walk around the base of Mount Tauhara (the mountain you pass on the Napier – Taupo road just before you arrive in Taupo).
• The Mizuno Half Marathon in Taupo, 2 August.
• The Mizuno Off-Road Half Marathon in Kinloch, Saturday 5 September.

So people were challenged to do all 3 events and become a member of the elusive 63.3 club. Something else entirely than the 2-mile high club.
Our neighbour Paul had a whole set of clever ideas:

• He decided to walk the Half Marathon in Taupo,
• Pick up the information for the off-road Half Marathon in Kinloch,
• Tell Elly and me about it and
• Arrange for accommodation in a holiday home in Kinloch owned by a mutual acquaintance.

So off we were on Friday 4 September to Kinloch. We were both reasonably trained as we had just run the Half Marathon in the HB Marathon. Not that we were particularly well trained for that one, but we did it. Unfortunately I had injured my Achilles tendon in the lead up to it and after running the Half Marathon it was quite sore. If you say it was rather stupid to run a half marathon with an injured Achilles, you are probably right. In that case you will be happy to know that I decided to walk instead of run the half in Kinloch. This would be the first time I’d walk a half marathon. All the more an interesting challenge.

We woke up on Saturday morning under a radiant blue sky. No cloud to be seen, but instead a superb view of the Tongariro volcanoes. I never realised that from Kinloch you are looking in a straight line over all the 3 tops: Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and then Ruapehu. It was a view I had not seen before. If you wouldn’t know you wouldn’t notice that you were looking at 3 separate mountains at all. What a view!

There were about 950 people registered, mostly runners. At the start Elly, Paul and I meet up with Roger and Barbara Hooker. Tavia Craig is also there and one other Hastings club member whose name escapes me at the moment (apologies). We were all off at 9:00am. Because the return part of the course is over the same narrow track as the track up the hill, the logistics are such that it is attempted to get as many walkers on the loop part of the track before the first runners start coming back. The first 400 meters are on the road in Kinloch, but after that we all squeeze onto the track. As probably almost unavoidable there is hold-up. I manage to get past most of the mêlée, and at the same time lost sight of Roger Hooker, our Hastings club mate, who is also walking the half today. Paul was going to do an easy walk and he was more to back at the start. I pass a lot of what must be runners, all walking in the bunch up the hill. It will be the start of walking amongst the ‘runners’ for the rest of event. But I feel good and decide to go for it and do a good time.

Not being used to walking it is rather strange to be walking amongst all these runners. Because it is all rather up hill, a lot of them swap walking with running. And those that do, I invariably catch up with again at the times they are walking. We keep alternating with passing each other.

Finally there is the 1km mark. It takes so long when you are walking! The 2km mark passes at 17 minutes. Oops, that is a bit slower than I had expected. But it is quite a lot uphill and with the queuing at the beginning, hopefully things will pick up a bit. We pass the start of the loop without me evening noticing it. We keep going uphill and hence I keep walking amongst the runners. And I also keep meeting the same ones all the time.

At about 7km a guy catches up with me and he is walking. That was a bit of a surprise, as he is the first walker to come up to me. I have had runners breathing in my neck (literally) for times on end, but no walkers yet. So I ask him what he is doing: “Are you a runner or a walker”. No, he is a walker. He stays behind me for a while and then passes. While he is walking in front of me I see him clearly running down the small (5 meters or so) downhill parts we have. So I understand a bit better why he passed me at that stage (there is a bit of downhill between 6 and 8km), but it also hits me that (in contrast with running) there is this whole dimension as a walker about your fellow competitors: “Are they properly walking or not?”. This is really a bit of a pain. At least while you are running you know exactly that when somebody is faster than you are, they are just faster. With walking that is entirely different. It is really easy to think that maybe they ran at least a little bit. To show what it is all about, I am later passed by two more walkers that seemed to be walking perfectly when they passed me. That treats me right for thinking that everybody that passes me must be running.

But while we are getting to the top at about 11km, I again pass a tired runner and a little later get to the lookout. Wow, what a view! The whole of Tongariro National Park in full view, and Lake Taupo at my feet. I have to stop for a few seconds. Time for a drink anyway.

Then it’s downhill. Quite hard actually to keep walking properly on such a downhill. I have to put the brakes on here and there, probably because of complete lack of any technique. Strangely enough I am all alone and for a moment even think I have missed a turn somewhere and am off the track. But then I see the 13km mark and also hear runners behind me. They are starting to pass me again; good on them. A little bit uphill again and then we have completed the loop and back on track. We get some more views of the lake and bays and also of Kinloch on the way back. What a gorgeous track this is on a fine day. The Tuis are everywhere and about a km before we get out of the forest a Keruru crosses my path.

There it is, we are out of the forest and back in residential Kinloch. But we stay off the road for the rest of the course and on a nice walking track. After about 500m I hear two people coming up behind me. And it sounds like they are walking. I don’t really feel like being taken over again, so I go a little bit faster. They hang on. There is all this breathing going on close behind me. Faster, faster … I think I see the finish line coming up, so I really step on it. I am motoring away. I lose the breathing behind me. Yeah! But where is the finish line? Still not there. As a nice surprise we get a very steep, but short bridge over the inner harbour. It needs to be steep so all the yachts can go underneath. And then I see the finish line, really. Finally. I can just keep up the pace and there we go, over the finish line. Elly and Maureen are there to take my photo. I look at the clock: 2:53.

My official time turns out to be 2:52:22. First in my age group out of 6, 12th walker in out of 206 and 8th male. I was pretty happy with that. Certainly for a first walk. Time to switch codes?

Other results: Barbara Hooker (run): 2:19:46; Elly Govers (run): 2:23:46; Tavia Craig (run): 2:25:34; Roger Hooker (walk): 3:11:39.

(For all results go to:
http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?eventID=1793098&pubID=3).

We decide to spend another night in Kinloch and enjoy some more of this lovely little lake side village. We have dinner in the “Tipsy Trout”: lovely food, I can recommend it. We leave slightly tipsy, nothing too bad though.

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