Mt Eden Month: Reflections

Posted by Ed on November 8, 2019

Well, I did it. Sort of.

At the beginning of October, I set out to summit Mount Eden/Mangawhau in Auckland every day, on two feet or two wheels. In the end, I managed 23 summits out of the 31 days in October, which works out as roughly a 75% success rate.

It’s not perfect, but what is? I figured early on, after managing to summit 10 days in a row, that with life sometimes getting in the way, it wasn’t going to be possible to go the whole month without missing a day. Okay, scratch that – of course, it would have been possible. But it didn’t feel like something I would be doing.

But despite not quite achieving a ‘perfect score’, I’ve learnt a huge amount in the last month. I pushed my body harder than I have in a long time, and I feel like I’ve broken through an invisible barrier that I was too afraid, previously, to try and smash, and my running has gone up a notch.

First, some numbers.

I ran just over 100 miles in the month, which is not, for me, a particularly long way, although I did run more frequently than I have for a long time. What really made the difference, though, was the elevation – I climbed just a shade under 16,000 feet this month, which is far more than I have ever done.

As a runner who has previously had no issues with getting fit but struggled with the strength aspect necessary to prevent injury and hold good form late in a race, I have to say I have really noticed a difference now that the month is over. I have found a solid ‘first gear’ with which to power up hills, and am able to recover quickly once I summit and begin descending.

Whatsmore, I’ve gained a degree of mastery over the psychological difficulty of running on tired legs. Early on in the month, maybe around day ten, I actually found myself chuckling at how much my legs ached. I felt like I was back at kilometre 40 at Tarawera; only this time, my brain wasn’t having it. I recognised the pain, acknowledged it, but found I was able to run all the same.

I had this idea going into the month that the first one or two weeks would be tough, and then my body would begin to adapt. I think I got this notion from watching a documentary about Eddie Izzard running his 43 marathons in 51 days – after the first ten days, according to Izzard, his body sort of ‘caught up’ with what he was asking of it, and did what was necessary to get the task done.

Broadly, my experienced aligned with Eddie’s (I’m not comparing our achievements – his was magnificent; mine, merely ‘pretty cool’.) The second half of the month was characterised by generally feeling pretty good, even upping my mileage to include some longer runs. I tackled a hilly 26km ‘Seven Summits of Central Auckland’ route that I had wanted to run for some time, and felt strong enough to run a 36km North Shore route the next weekend, at the beginning of November.

I’m now heading into a taper for the Rotorua Running Festival 50k at the end of November, and I can confidently say I’ve never gone into a race feeling this fit and strong. In my near four years of running, I’ve never really pulled off a solid ‘training block’. My training has been sporadic, characterised by a couple of runs a week, longer than they should be, and periods of inactivity. By training (nearly) every day with short, hilly runs, I’ve gained a real insight into the utility of frequency over length. Far better to run 5k every day than 35k once a week.

All in all, I’m really, really glad I decided to take on this challenge. As with so many good ideas, it more or less popped into my head at the beginning of the month, quite inexplicably. Once I’m rested and recovered from my next race, I am excited to utilise what I have learned moving forward, prioritising frequent, shorter runs, and hopefully, in the long term, shifting into more athletically competitive realms.