Fifty at Fifty at Ring of Fire

I started running in 2017 and before I even had completed my first marathon, I entered the Ring of Fire doing the 50k at age 50. My family and friends thought I was mad. I was slowly getting addicted to trail running and upping the distances. After completing the Xterra Waihi marathon, I initially followed the ‘Relentless Forward Progress’ training plan. Most weekdays training on local trails and volcanic cones, occasionally heading out to Te Henga while my daughter was at Air Cadets. Joined a couple of trail running groups and met up with some incredible people for my long runs in the weekends.

The weeks leading up to the inaugural Ring of Fire I was pretty nervous. Had I done enough? What’s it like running there? What gear to pick? My trail buddies assured me I was ready. But to be honest, I wasn’t so sure about that myself. When race week came, I decided to go on my own and leave the family behind. I was going through a rough time and wanted to complete this challenge on my own. Find myself again.

I left Auckland early Friday morning after dropping the girls off. I took my time, stopping for a coffee and food here and there. Enjoying the long winding roads through King Country while listening to some old classics. When Mt Ruapehu appeared, with its peak covered in clouds, I felt a calm coming over me. With every kilometer going by, more and more memories of my dad and I in the mountains passed. We had epic hikes together.

After checking in at the Chateau Tongariro I went to the registration and did the gear check. That went smooth without any issues. With plenty of time to kill, I laid out my gear on the bed and started wrapping my clothes in glad wrap and prepared my drop bag. Late afternoon I went out for a short jog followed by the mandatory briefing and an early dinner before going off to bed. I set the alarm for 2am and lights went out by 7pm.

After getting up, had a shower and good breakfast. Plenty of time before the bus departed at 4am to Ohakune. The hotel was buzzing and the 72k runners were getting ready. When they started their journey, our bus took off. The bus ride was longer than I expected but I had good company, chatting to a Danish runner. We initially stopped at the relay transition point, but the driver was asked to take us higher up to the start. At the briefing before the start they said being higher up meant an additional 1.5k of downhill running.

And all of a sudden it was 6am and just over 150 runners started their 50k journey back to the Chateau. That 1.5k turned out to be 4.5k of downhill and I was happy to start at a slow pace at the back of the pack to spare my legs (to my surprise I ran a PB on the 1k and 1m on that downhill). We veered off into beech forest with good trails and boardwalks and occasionally overtaking some runners before reaching the first of the one-person swing bridges. It was then that Gene Beveridge appeared out of nowhere while we were queuing up. The ‘you shall not pass’ was waved by all as for us slower runners it didn’t matter. While heading towards the Mangaehuehu hut the terrain changed and got rockier. Near one of the many streams, we found ‘5164’ in agony. It looked like he had rolled his ankle. One of us texted the organization. I told him to put his foot in the cold stream hoping the tennis ball size swelling would shrink. Two others stayed with him while I ran to the hut to inform the marshals, which was luckily only 1k further and a medic went back.

After the hut, the terrain kept changing. Going up and down hills, through canyons and many more swing bridges. It also got trickier with all the gravel, loose stones and some massive rocks. I felt good and overtook more runners. The Missing Link is probably one of the most amazing sceneries I have run through in my short career as a runner, so varied and the views just keep going. My watch indicated that the first 25k was nearly behind me. But I was wrong and many of us were confused when distance indicators told us we were not there yet. We soon figured out that the start up the hill caused that difference and we knew it would probably be close to 30k before the aid station came. Surprisingly this was an easy mental switch for me but not so much for some of the other runners. The terrain and the views of the mountain put me in some sort of trance with memories of my late dad and me in the mountains drifting in and out. I think from that moment onwards we were running together to the aid station at the top of the Rangipo Desert, which I reached in 5:30. I took some gels and bars out of the drop bag, put the rubbish back in, topped up water and continued to run.

That downhill from the aid station was tricky, as the marshals had warned us. Nearly at the bottom I made a roll. I looked up and around wondering what caused it. Probably a stone I missed. My knee was bleeding but didn’t hurt. A few meters further I saw a stream where I cleaned my knee. Just a cut. The next section was pretty awesome. Wide open tussock and I loved running through the dry river bed, noticing that I was going at a good pace. For kilometers I didn’t see anyone but knew there were a couple of people behind me. I decided to make my Buff wet at the next stream. Walking to the edge I stepped on a piece of grass that was floating and finally got my feet wet. Just before the Waihohonu hut I caught up with Anel who was taking a break and shared some yummy dried fruit with me. Shortly after I met George and we decided to run together to the finish pacing each other up and down the hills and the now perfect trails. Again, one of the distance markers started to mess with our heads. Only 5k to go. We knew we were getting closer to civilization as we saw more and more trampers on the trails. Soon we could see the Chateau in the distance and heard waves of music. And there it was, we could see the finish line and heard the now clear music and names being announced. One last turn and we finished together in 9:28 with nearly 55k behind us.

Based on previous runs and intel from elite runners, I thought it would take me about 8:30 to complete the 50k run. I got to this distance in 8:50 so not too far off. Overall pace was 10:23/k and I finished 52nd overall which is my best result so far.

After receiving the finishers medal and a couple of beers (I still owe you one, George!), I went up to my room and got changed before heading back to the finish line to welcome home other runners till after dark. I know how it feels to finish a race when hardly anybody is there, so returned the favour as many of you did for me over the past year.

The Ring of Fire was a new milestone for me and it has renewed my love for the mountains. The event was well organized from start to finish. The course was well marked and had plenty of manned check points along the way. Thank you to all those volunteers and the organization for making this happen. Now thinking about what’s next. Someone called me a ‘crazy runner’ recently, so who knows what epic event I will register for next.

Photo credits: photos4sale.co.nz