Thunderbolt and the High-5-0

By Alan

For the High-5-0 challenge, Mal Law was spending 50 days running 50 offroad marathons including 50 mountains. Every day different support runners ran with him as well as raising money for the Mental Health Foundation. I'd signed on for running day 2 of the challenge in the Kaimanawa ranges. The Hillary Weekend had raised the funds and given me plenty of hill training but was it enough?

An early start and initial steep climb through beech forest led to the tops with spectacular views across to the volcanoes of Tongariro in the early morning light. Once on the Umukarikari ridge we there was great running along the good track then down to Waipakihi Hut.

After the hut we climbed into the trackless Middle Range. Very happy to have a bluebird day to navigate through the open tops. A stark contrast to the last time I was in the area in a whiteout when tramping with Joolz. The open tops had everything from great scree running to nasty slow vegetation fighting ascents. After about 8hrs we were on the summit of Thunderbolt, great name for a bland flat-topped mountain with amazing views.

But there was more. To get home we had a 600m descent followed by 500m climb & descent over Urchin. That climb was one of the hardest I've done with over 10 hours of hills already in my legs. Finally we reached the finish after 12hrs, 42km and 3000m of climbing. I was done for, but for Mal this was just day-2 with 48 more to complete his challenge! Read Mal's blog of the day here.