Category: running

Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts –book review

Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, by Josie Shapiro

Partly, this book is the story of a woman running the Auckland marathon. There’s a lot of determination, a lot of pain, much questioning and self-doubt. It is a tactical race, and we get the feel early on that our runner, Mickey, knows what she is about and is in it to win it. This race runs alongside the story of how our woman came to be here, next to the ocean, running her heart out. I thought the marathon was superbly written (and run) and I was with Mickey through all the pain and the euphoria.

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Running slips

and planting natives

Five weeks without access to the Hawkes Bay reserves has been nothing compared to the anguish suffered by so many after the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle. So, we couldn’t run the hills for a few weeks. Not a big deal, in the scheme of things. Now the trails are mostly open again and frankly, I’m surprised at the speed of this considering the resources required – those same resources of machinery and planning and humans that are in such demand everywhere. Men with diggers, once again, I salute you.

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Running and looking up

I haven’t been up the Peak for a while. Always an excuse: my run buddy’s busy, haven’t got time, too unfit, too bloody cold. Easier to do a quick run around the reserve and tell myself I’ll get back on the Peak tomorrow.

I went today. It was hard. I was on my own and unfit but it was a pretty beaut winter’s afternoon — couldn’t complain that it was cold. I had my head down on the steep bits.

When I looked up, there were a couple of eyebrows lifting over the Peak, elegant as Judy Garland’s. Paragliders. Drifting on some warm air cushion that rises up under the cliffs on the other side of the hill. They belonged up there in the air, lazily cruising the blue.

It’s good to stop and look up. There are lots of reasons for running, far more than there are for not running. Paragliders on the Peak is one. I’ll remind myself of the others as I get back out onto the trails.

And running

Te Mata Peak and Waiohine Gorge, new and ancient forests.

I haven’t done any running posts for ages, but doesn’t mean I haven’t been out there. In new and old forests.

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The running graph

Optimism for over the hill runners

You’re born, you run, you die.

Somewhere in the middle there’s a peak when it all comes together: age, training, body, everything adding up to the perfect run where you hit the hills and can run for hours. God, I miss it!

I will never run that well again. I am over the hill, as it were.

So what’s to do? I’ve never been one for analysis. I don’t record my times and speed, I do different trails all the time, always off-road. It’s difficult to compare times when the track’s washed away or the dog’s decided to avoid the zigzag and go cross-country for a change. But even so, it is hard not to consider that once I ran Te Mata Peak, fast and furious, without falling over. Obviously the sensible thing, as we age, is to continue to run, consistently, patiently, accepting the fact that as you slide from “peak you”, every run will be that little bit less. “Good for your age” people will say, but it will be a challenge just to stay on the path of steady decline. Look, I’ve drawn it for you:

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New Zealand’s first capital

Was it Russell, Kororareka, Waitangi, Okiato?

I followed Governor William Hobson and ran around in a circle to discover New Zealand’s first capital. If you’re thinking it’s Russell, you’re wrong. Kororareka? Think again. Waitangi? Nope.

My final run during my month in the Bay of Islands was the grand loop: it’s 13.5 km, involves two ferry rides, coastal track, beaches, lush bush, some road and long stretches of board walk. And LOTS of history, including the answer to the question: where was New Zealand’s first capital? Continue reading “New Zealand’s first capital”

Opua Kauri Walk

20 minutes from Paihia

This is one of my favourite walks around Paihia and a great way to get up close and friendly with some magnificent kauri trees, while respecting their roots and not contributing to die-back. I call it a walk rather than a run, because it’s only 1km in and out and it’s something to do slowly while you breathe deeply and contemplate the declining green spaces in the world and why it is so important to treasure them. Continue reading “Opua Kauri Walk”

Whangaroa: running with ghosts

Vibrations of the Boyd Massacre

A man on a boat told me to run the Wairakau Stream to the Duke’s Nose, which sounded my type of thing. I took my friend M with me, a Spanish lady who was staying at the YHA, who is so intimidatingly spiritual she talks of her body as a separate person. She listens to her body, and does what it tells her. It told her to come with me into the forest, so off we went.

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