Mt Lyford Challenge Report/Photos

We headed up to Lyford on Saturday and after setting up camp at the lodge headed up and had a little look at the course. I was able to suss out the last 3km down hill section of the race. Then we rested up and fueled up for the next day. My day started pretty leisurely compared to the rest of the folks camping out at the Mt Lyford lodge as they were all doing the Vasque – Mt Terako Extreme Challenge. I did manage to get up and catch the start of the Extreme race and wish Jane and a few other good luck, with what was going to be a pretty big day out.

Ian Reeves leads out the pack at the start of the Extreme Challange

Mt Lyford Challenge

Just back from Lyford and the Mt Lyford Challenge. Jane lined up for the “Extreme Challenge”, a 20km, 2000m “running” race. Jane crushed it, winning the woman’s race in  4hr01mins. It sounded pretty hard, with some crazy river running, as well as some very nice ridge running.

I did the 9km, 856m race. This was a pretty good choice as it meant a sleep in and then a little nap after Jane started her race/before my race started. I was pretty happy with my race, winning it in 54min30sec, beating KerryFass by about 8mins and breaking the course record by about 4mins.

I’ll post some photos and a few more details later in the week.

An easy 4-5 days coming up and then a “crash week” that should include running sections of the Routeburn!

Off to Lyford

About to head of to Mt Lyford this morning for the Mt Lyford Challenge. The 20km Mt Terako Extreme Challenge is dubbed NZ’s challenging mountain run under 30km’s and with 2040m of vertical it probably is. I how ever aren’t feeling very extreme so are saving the legs and doing the Mt Lyford Classic Challenge, which is 9km’s and 856m of climbing. The winning time for this was about 58mins last year, so it is not exactly a “soft” option.
Jane is lining up in the Extreme race, as are mate’s Gary, Rich and Rae. Will be nice to run a short race and should be another good hard training run.
Mt Terako race map HERE
Mt Lyford Map HERE
NZ’s most challenging adventure run

Avalanche Peak Challenge

A quick glance at the start list yesterday morning and I knew that I was in for a good race at the Avalanche Peak Challenge (APC). Looking the list over I figured I could finish anywhere from 1st-5th, depending on what kind of day we were all having. The woman’s race started 1st, so it was nice to see Jane start and cheer her on before they ducked onto the Avalanche Peak track. Jane’s race would be similar, with a pretty strong field, including Lara Prince, who has won title after title at the APC.

Our race started off surprisingly slow, as everyone seemed to hold back a little, before Jacob Roberts not surprisingly took the lead. By the time we hit the steep single track I slotted right in behind him, with Tane Cambridge close behind.

Ready

Feel ready to race tomorrow at the Avalanche Peak Challenge, well ready compared to this time last year. A year ago I had just started running again after getting some painful tendonitis, shin split thing going on with my lower left leg. I started running again about 6 days before the ’09 Avalanche Peak Challenge after racking up about 10hr of training (running and biking) in February. Last year I was pretty happy with my 6th place finish, about 20mins behind winner Jacob Roberts on the bad weather course that descents down Scott’s back in to Arthur’s and down the Bealey River.

This year I think it will be a very different story. For starters the weather forecast is looking good and we should get to run the full course- ascending Avalanche Peak Track, a sweet ridge run towards Mt Rolleston, descending into the Crow and out to Klondyke Corner. I run about 4 x as much this past Feb than in ’09, with 17hrs in the last 8days of February. In the 8 day block I got 2 complete runs over Avalanche Peak in, 1 of which was a 56min ascent and 2hr40 out to Klondyke.

For a few reasons I don’t really have much of a race plan at this stage. I don’t know who else will be on the start line yet, but hopefully the likes of Andrew Reese-Jones, Matt Scott, Richie Hunter and 3 x(?) winner Jacob Roberts will be there! It would be great to be able to chase these guys around for  the morning. I am also approaching this race as a hard training run as much as anything, not that I won’t be racing come 1030 tomorrow morning.

I can’t wait………..