Dear WRW Members,

You’re invited to an evening of camaraderie, delicious food and celebration at our annual Wellington Running and Walking club dinner!

Let’s come together to reflect on our achievements, share stories, and look ahead to another exciting year of movement and friendship.

Date: Saturday 2nd November
Time: 6.00 PM
Location: Brentwood Hotel, 16 Kemp Street, Kilbirnie

Short Member Talks

Hear from a few of our walking & running members as they share their unique running and walking journeys. From overcoming challenges to celebrating personal bests, their stories will inspire you!

Delicious Food & Drink

Enjoy a delightful dinner with fellow members, featuring a variety of tasty options to satisfy all palates.

Connect with your running & walking friends

A wonderful opportunity to meet again to look back on 2024 and inspire each other for the year ahead.

The annual dinner organizers Bice Awan, Maryse Arnell and the WRW committee welcome you to attend, and look forward to seeing you on the evening. The club is again providing partial sponsorship of the event.
We can’t wait to celebrate with you!

Please:
(i) Sign up on the form below, and
(ii) Cost: Members $50, Non-members $60
Payment to Wellington Runners & Walkers (WRW)
Particulars: Name,
Reference: Dinner2024
02-0534-0095446-000

Dinner Registration

Registration is now closed.

Registered

Total Registered

Members: 34
Non-members: 1

Time to make another assault on my running photo backlog!

25 August saw our club’s bus trip to Waikanae. Beautiful part of Wellington, seriously. I have to admit I’d missed our last three bus trips, so actually making it to this one was one hell of a relief.

And it well and truly paid off. Check out these photos!

My running pack banged out this route in particular: https://www.strava.com/activities/12233782527

Also posted at:

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/wellyrunwalk/posts/2773084936210993/
• https://www.instagram.com/p/DDQaFnfSvkA/?img_index=1

Please park on the road and not down the driveway, the theatre is located at the rear of the property.
BYO is OK if you want to drink wine/beer.
Capacity: 38max first come first served basis

Payment

Cost: $20/head, please pay via internet banking into:

Account Name: Wellington Marathon Clinic
Account Number: 02/0534/0095446/000. 
Particulars: (your name)
Reference: Movie Night

NOTE: no money will be taken at the door on the night
Please pay on line PRIOR to the evening.

Movie Night Program

Your $20 covers:

4:00pm – 4:30. Turn up Happy Hour – there is a lot to see on display so get there early if you want to soak up the atmosphere of the venue. This is the time to do that.

5:00pm -5:45.  A selection of Pizzas (with some non meat options)

5:45pm – 6:55. First Half – into the theatre for:

Stand for the King (not compulsory) but can be a source of nostalgia for those of a certain age. There is a general reluctance nowadays to be seen to stand publicly for such a thing, nevertheless this did happen back in the day.

A selection of ads for products and services that no longer exist at prices that no longer apply, then a couple of items of local historical interest.

6:55pm – 7:20. Interval – Tea and Bikkies

7:20pm – 9:15. Main Movie – I will disclose the movie on the night, this is to induce a feeling of excitement and anticipation in the atmosphere. You know…fun!

However a little birdie told me that it’s an early David Lean directed movie with a very good script, cast, narration and rating on rotten tomatoes, definitely worth a watch and I suspect if you have seen it, it was a long time ago.

We should be out of the cinema by 9:15 depending on how much social intercourse is manifest during the course of the evening. I’ll endeavour to keep it to this schedule by use of the bell.

Hope to see you there for an evening of food and entertainment at great value.

P.S. the club is subsidizing this for you by heaps, depending on the numbers, your $20 is just covering the food aspect alone.

Cheers guys, let’s hope for a healthy response now we are relatively Covid Free.

Gordy.

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Thus, at first I’d intended to write only briefly. But … I’d been mentioning this marathon and its training regimen to my day-job workplace, Equinox Ventures. And, holy crap, they’ve only gone and sent me a congratulatory $130 voucher for https://www.primalrehab.co.nz/. One of their few non-nerd People-Person employees, Amelia, has also asked me if I might like to answer a few questions for them about the event: tell us what marathons are like, your preparation, your training, your motives, inspirations, highlights, participation experiences, advice for newbies. etc.

This seemed spectacularly reasonable! Least I could do. So I banged out a few answers … and also copied them here. Enjoy!

Amelia: Where was the marathon held? What was the name of the event?

The marathon I ran was a single lap of Lake Rotorua: https://www.google.com/maps/@-38.0924121,176.250186,12z The event itself was https://www.rotoruamarathon.co.nz/race-options/marathon, the 60th annual Rotorua Marathon. It’s neat! Thousands of people do it each year, with multiple events, distances, demographics: there’s a full 42km marathon around the lake; a 21km half-marathon venturing into the bush to the south of Rotorua; plus 5km and 10km events for those preferring shorter distances. The event itself takes over Rotorua’s Events Centre for a few days, managing athlete registrations, signups, collection of gear, spot prizes, local athletics shops selling their own gear, and various histories of the event itself. It’s massive. I’d snapped a few photos: https://share.icloud.com/photos/03dKfUVMiw5jEPdXKSsF-SazA Part of the events centre is dedicated to a gallery of each year’s event, and a while back I also got photos of the lot. Check these out: https://share.icloud.com/photos/038NQx5TBqiMTWlo_jdAljGOQ Each photo is of a massive poster summary of each annual marathon, starting way back in 1965. Oodles of local history.

How did you prepare for the marathon? How long was your training period?

My running group’s training proper lasted about four months. I’ve been a member of https://wellyrunwalk.org.nz/ since the late ‘90s, and its original name was the Wellington Marathon Clinic: for decades, you could join up as a beginner with zero fitness, and over the course of a year or two, you could join various running packs aimed at various fitness levels, beef up your own fitness, and eventually have a properly good crack at a full-length marathon. 42km. The running pack I’m part of still does this! Great fun. It’s led by my dad, Gordy, who joined the club back in 1981. He’s done 65 marathons total, and the Rotorua marathon 28 times, and he’s got our pack’s annual training schedule down to an incredibly consistent routine.

The club as a whole meets every Sunday morning at 8am, and each running or walking pack then pinballs around Wellington for a couple of hours. We normally do that weekly all year anyway. Gordy’s marathon-specific training builds on this.

For four months leading up to the event, our weekly runs alternate between the standard 2h events, and seven specific 3-4hr courses. These babies:

• https://www.strava.com/activities/10643004477
• https://www.strava.com/activities/10736839493
• https://www.strava.com/activities/10830064789
• https://www.strava.com/activities/10926411301
• https://www.strava.com/activities/11024377189
• https://www.strava.com/activities/11122974423
• https://www.strava.com/activities/11227470802

A few of these are brutal as hell. Especially 4, the 34km Makara Loop. You do it anticlockwise, so that you exhaust yourself for 30km, before ascending for 2km of incredibly steep road, up and over a mountain saddle. We could totally have done the loop clockwise instead, but you’re only really cheating yourself if you do the hardest bit when you’re freshest. Save the best ‘til last. If your athletic universe hasn’t collapsed into an unrelenting nightmare of agonising pain, then what’s the point?

Is this your first marathon run?

Yes and no. The Rotorua marathon is the only actual official marathon event I’ve done, though this year is the sixth year I’ve done it. I’ll happily continue it indefinitely, though. For there is a club. https://www.rotoruamarathon.co.nz/survivors-club. The Survivor’s Club is an offshoot of the official Rotorua marathon event. It’s for people who have completed the marathon 15 or more times. My dad, Gordy, has completed it 28 times and counting, and his partner Wendy has banged out her 15th, and joined the Survivors this year. It’s great fun: on the evening after each marathon, the club holds a dinner at the nearby Millennium Hotel, with some seriously good buffet cuisine in gigantic quantities. They allow plus-ones to attend, moi, and I’ve already attended all of my six times. Give me another nine years, and I too shall ascend to Survivorhood. It’s neat. You get a polo shirt, with one of those shield-insignia-things on the breast pocket, emblazoned with the number of years you’d been marathonning away. I think the club’s current record is a dude with 48 successful marathons. Seriously. 48. What a dude!

What inspired you to run this marathon?

Apart from masochism? Oh, loads of things. First up, I’d just wanted to get fit enough to run actual marathons. You know Runner’s High? It’s this alleged buzz you get after completing a really rigorous aerobic event. Apparently you feel warm and buzzy and on top of the world and only slightly tormented by your legs and lungs kersploding.

I too scoffed upon first hearing of Runner’s High: sounds like pure cope, right? Then I too experienced some. And it’s amazing. Bang out a two-hour morning jog, and not only do you feel warm and buzzy but also spectacularly fresh and vibrant and warmed up. Fatigued, sure, but counterbalanced by this delicious serene internal wumm-wumming. And neighbours mirror it right back at you. I’ve staggered into cafes, ordered lunch, chatted with the staff a bit … and then the beaming waitress also brought me coffees I’d not ordered, “on the house,” though admittedly the morning’s run had exhausted me to the point it wasn’t hours later I’d realised she’d been flirting. Can’t win them all, right?

Marathon perks aren’t exclusively flirt-based, more’s the pity. Maybe they should be. It’d do wonders for attendance. Marathonning overall isn’t exclusively unbearable agony but also sports bright spots. Loads of them. You ask me why I chose to run this marathon in particular? There are millions of factors that go into making a particular running course more special and/or fun than others. A few biggies are: the natural beauty and variation of the course itself; how rural/urban it is; and attendance from other runners and the kinds of fab culture you all build together.

First reason: its setting, Lake Rotorua, is spectacularly gorgeous. You’ve got stunning views and scenery the entire way around the lake, plus just enough hills and slopes to mix up your effort levels and keep you on your toes. Even if you’re exhausted, you can still gaze around and drink in the views and feel aesthetically nourished. For a while.

Second reason: surprise surprise, turns out the logistics and organisation of any 42km road-based event are absolutely massive. This year’s event had five thousand runners. The marathon course’s first 5km is inside the city of Rotorua itself. Every street intersection had to be blocked off and crewed by event staff, attempting to direct traffic, usually with 20-30min waiting times. The entire city is basically gridlocked. It’s a fantastic way to irritate non-runners. But luckily the vast majority of the event course is way out in the country, with relatively few blocks.

Contrast this to, say, the London marathon. All 42km is inner-city urban. And it’s got 40,000 people each year. It’s colossal. It brings the entire inner city to a standstill for the whole day. The more of a marathon’s course you can situate in the middle of goddamn nowhere, then the easier and cheaper it is to manage the event logistics. I think that’s a big reason behind the championing of extreme-terrain off-road events in recent years. Far easier to manage the oceanic flow of a gazillion runners when they’re all way out in the Styx and not spooning Buckingham Palace.

Third reason: Rotorua’s marathon in particular has kind of become known as NZ’s “runners’ marathon”. It’s in a (somewhat) central country location, and occupies a kind of sweet spot for the maximum number of NZ athletes to access.

So the Rotorua marathon in particular enjoys maximum runner numbers, a gorgeous marathon course, and minimal urban gridlock. Best of everything, really.

Any highlights from this run?

Highlights? Sure, loads from the course itself, though by this sixth event the novelty has started to wear off. The start line has cannons and a haka group, and the cannons make one hell of a starting gun. The haka group cheer on us five thousand starters with a blood-curdling Te Reo Māori rendition of It’s Raining Men, or at least that’s what I think it was based on their acrobatics. At the 10km mark there’s a magnificent demonstration of Japanese taiko drummers and drumming. You can hear it from a kilometre away. At the 15km mark there’s a bagpipe band. This year they were tootling Amazing Grace, youtu.be/89g9yMGFGlM, or possibly Denis Leary’s Asshole, youtu.be/UrgpZ0fUixs, I always get those mixed up, and you can hear it from two kilometres away.

There are loads of these impromptu noisemakers. I love them, they add so much joy and variety to the occasion.

Do you have plans to participate in more marathons or other running events?

Marathons? Not particularly. Not only are marathons themselves beyond brutal, but maintaining match-fit marathon fitness also gobbles up tremendous amounts of time and effort. I’ll happily bang out an annual Rotorua effort, but probably not more frequently than that.

But shorter events? Half-marathons, say? Sure! Bring it on. Our Runners-and-walkers club’s running pack bang out weekly half marathon distances anyway.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering running their first marathon?

Isn’t it obvious?

Fitness. You’ve either Got It or you Ain’t. Training and prep are for wimps and posers, man. Comatose on the sofa? Get out of breath after even quite a short sentence? Yearn instead for a ghastly jog? Reckon your foetal physique will withstand its rigours? Do you feel lucky, punk? If your aerobic form can’t instantly kapow from King Tut with leprosy to Sonic the Hedgehog pompoiring the Large Hadron Collider, then just you tear up your Femme-Fatale-Card or whatever insults today’s cool-kids are kicking around …

… Nah, are you kidding? No-one’s instantly an expert at anything. It’s all good. Getting properly good at any skill or pastime often takes months and months and years and years. It’s no different with running and fitness. Venture forth just a tiny bit further each day, and before you know it you’ll be banging out multiple-hour jogs and it’ll feel fantastic. Yes, the prospect of running 42 kilometres in one go makes most peoples’ souls shrivel and burst. But not even quite experienced aquajoggers would consider it a good idea to venture across the English Channel on their first day in the ocean. Unless their corpse washes up on a Calais beach. Then they’ll be chuffed to bits. Albeit dead. So pace yourself.

In all seriousness, I’d encourage anyone and everyone to bang out a lovely walk and/or jog a few times a week. You’ll feel refreshed and vibrant and chummy. You’ll get to know your local area far more intimately. You’ll get hailed on. You’ll learn to love getting hailed on. Why not join a local walking and/or running club? Their clientele adore these things too. You’ll feel right at home.

My girlfriend, Danielle, has experienced all this first-hand. She’s from Brazil, and moved to Wellington only a year ago. Before that, as far as she and her entire family were concerned, exercise was this hideous cloaked menace that abducted upper-class nancy-boys and imprisoned them in spandex. She’d never so much as walked five minutes, for recreation alone, in her life. Normally she’s all delightful smiles, but if I dared mention popping out for a walk, she’d immediately hiss like Christopher Lee and flip cars, then scamper up the nearest tree, and I’d have to entice her down with jewellery and Parmigiano.

Until she gave walking a go herself. And she adored it. She’s encountered and experienced this fabled Runners’ High herself. She and I together banged out the final event of last year’s Runners-and-Walkers-club event list, the Turkey Trot. (For those who’d not heard of such an event, the idea is, you all run/walk a predetermined route, estimate what you think your completion time might be, leave your watches/phones behind, complete it, and whoever’s actual time is closest to their estimate wins a turkey. Or at least it used to be a turkey. These days it’s supermarket vouchers.)

Danielle and I together walked 6.8km for a time of 1h53m. She couldn’t believe it. Sustained exercise for almost two hours? Impossible! Her family would never believe her! 

Subsequently, she and I have walked many other tracks and routes, and each time we build our fitness just that bit further. She and I came to Rotorua together. She wasn’t intending to enter any events herself, until Gordy and Wendy and I popped into Rotorua’s Events Centre to pick up our race numbers and swag. (They give you Hell Pizza Free Humongous Pizza vouchers, by the way, totally legit, sign up and get in quick).

There was a registration table, plus queue: “Last-minute registrations”. On a whim, Danielle signed up for the 5.5km walk/run course. How rad is that? She banged it out, and to her astonishment and delight rocketed around the 5.5km course in a mere 1h15m.

She’s done fantastically well over recent months, and I’m spectacularly proud of her. Just about anyone can build up their fitness too. Just a little bit each day, and before you know it you too will be moonwalking around Jupiter. Do join us, it’s a delight.

Hi Guys, here are the results for WRW members up at Rotorua that I was aware of on the day.

There could have been others up there I’m not sure?? Sorry.

Full Marathon

• Peter Frawley: 3:58:32(net) 362 of 1153 overall, 10 of 41 M60-64
• Mikey Clarke: 4:17:40(net) 502 of 1153 overall, 43 of 74 in M35-39
• Gordon Clarke: 4:24:46(net) 552 of 1153 overall, 18 of 41 in M60-64
• Paul Johnson: 4:28:24(net) 585 of 1153 overall, 35 of 68 in Age
• Annie McCabe: 4:55:42(net) 751 of 1153 overall, 64 of 88 in Age
• Wendy Kale: 6:31:42(net) 1048 of 1153 overall, 30 of 50 in W60-64

Half Marathon

• Mo Bhikha: 3:04:53(net) 1024 of 1113 overall, 9 of 10 M70-74

10km

• Bice Awan: 1:31:14(net) 664 of 888 overall, 2 of 3 W75-79
• Nazir Awan: 1:30:41(net) 658 of 888 overall, 2 of 2 M75-79
• Ted Greig: 1:51:16(net) 270 of 334 overall, 3 of 4 M75-79
• Katherine Greig: 1:51:15(net) 269 of 334 overall, 13 of 17 W70-74

5.5km

• Danielle Silva: 1:19:28(net) 383 of 402 overall, 250 of 263 F(all ages)

Plus: Ex President and Madame Secretary – Full marathon

• David Green: 4:27:29(net) 571 of 1153, 13 of 35 M65-69, 4 of 4 ANZ Champs
• Rachelle Green 4:27:29(net) 572 of 1153, 18 of 42 W45-49, 5 of 6 ANZ Champs

Well done to everyone, great conditions, lots of support on the course, a memorable 60th running of the event.

There were several other mates from Wellington Harriers and Scottish Harriers who ran well on the day.

A good turn out from Wellington in general.

When I joined WMC it was with the idea of running 1 marathon, I never imagined I would be running four marathons…all in one go!

I signed up to do the Tarawera Miler after the 50k event last year. It was a big jump to go from 50k to 162.5k but once the thought had entered my mind I couldn’t shake it off!

I joined Squadrun training who reassured me that running 100 miles was attainable and wrote me a training programme that I dutifully followed in the hope that it would see me through.

I also enlisted a support team including Karen Leeman, Persephone and Alicia who I knew would help me get to the finish line as pacers and support crew.

I put the hours of training in which included some fantastic highlights – running the 82km Timber Trail and the WUU2K run as well as the Blue Lake Challenge and once through the night. So I felt pretty prepared for the race when the day finally arrived.

It was amazing to be standing on the start line in Kawarau at 4am in the middle of a field, a mixture of excitement, nervousness and trepidation running through my veins. Then the countdown from 10 and we were off!

I took it slowly and followed my plan, to break the race down into bitesize chunks. Each aid station was between 10 and 20km and I just thought about getting to the next point. On the way, I chatted to runners from around the world and took in the beauty of the Tarawera trails.

My support crew were waiting for me at 65km. It was so emotional coming into that aid station with all the supporters cheering the runners on and knowing I would see Karen, Persephone and Alcia for the first time. And what a welcome! It was like being reunited with long lost family and they took care of me – changed my clothes, my drinks, checked for blisters and fed and reassured me before sending me on my way.

There was a flat section after Rerewhakaaitu followed by a boat ride and then hills and more hills! It was a tough part of the trail but I knew that I would see my support crew again at Buried Village, 88km into the race and once more they were there to greet and look after me.

Then I was on my own again into the first part of the night. I was now 100km in and it was getting dark. I followed my game plan – warm clothes, poles, music and set off into the night, knowing that I would pick up my first pacer, Persephone, at 114km.

I walked most of the Western Okataina Walkway (sometimes referred to as Hell!) It was a long stretch but I knew that all I had to do was get there and then I would be running with a friend. By that point many people were close to collapse and were dropping like flies but I always felt pretty strong. The night was long at times but hallucinations, falling asleep standing up, and throwing up all seemed to escape me.

And now I had Persephone to run with it was great fun! We chatted about Married at First Sight, played silly games, walked for 20 seconds and ran for 60 and just kept putting one foot in front of the other until the sun came up over Blue Lake and Persephone swapped out with Karen who became my pacer and we repeated the games, the laughs and the joys of running with friends who I will never forget.

Running was more walking by this point. I was sore and tired there was not long to go and I knew by now that I would get to the finish line. One more gnarly hill to climb over to the Redwoods and then the final stretch along the sulphur flats where all of my support crew could join.

And then the last dash down the finishing chute with Karen by my side. We ran the last 100 metres, called home by Ali from Squadrun and with Annie waiting at the finish line. Home in 30 hours and 34 minutes!

Once back, I was taken to the recovery tent and to get my treasured pounamu which is given to all miler finishers as a sign of their strength and courage.

In the last few years I have needed so much strength and courage and the miler was a manifestation of my ability to dig deep and to keep pushing on in the face of adversity.

In addition, it demonstrated that true friends make rough journeys easier to traverse. Persephone, Karen and Alicia were the real heroes on my journey. Partly I joined the clinic all those years ago to make friends, and what amazing friends I have made. Friends that journey with you night and day, through thick and thin and that are by your side to the end!

Saturday July 22nd – Usual venue 191 Sutherland Road, Lyall bay.

Turn up at 4:00 (happy hour, BYO)
We are ordering pizzas arriving at 4:30 
Tea or Coffee with bikkies at interval.
Should be out at 9:00.

Cost is $20 per person, (combined pizza and film evening entertainments)
first in first served, 38 max.
If you put your name on the list you are expected to have paid up prior to the evening. 

Pay into the Club bank account, no money taken at the door.

02 0534 0095446 000

We will remove the booking form on the Wednesday prior to the evening (Wed 19th July).

Movie Night Registration

ONE cinema seat reservation per submission.
If you are booking on behalf of somebody else, it’s OK to repeatedly supply your own email address.
Reservations are now closed.

Seats Registered

Totals

Seats reserved: 20
Dairy Free: 0
Gluten Free: 0
Vegetarian: 0