Mt Eden Month: The Halfway Point

Posted by Ed on October 16, 2019

At the beginning of this month, I set myself the challenge of summiting Mt Eden/Mangawhau in Auckland every day. I’m just over halfway through the challenge and so I figured now is a good time to take stock and reflect a little bit.

A windy summit with Emily.

So have I succeeded?

Well… no. Not exactly.

Has the experience been worthwhile? Definitely yes.

So let’s dive into it shall we?

The Numbers

So far, I’ve summited Mt Eden 12 out of 16 days.

I managed the first 10 days in a row, but it was obvious from a few days in that the feat was going to be more difficult than I had anticipated, more logistically than anything else.

A sweaty summit.

I wasn’t sure what to do about that, but I found myself reflecting on something I heard on Dirt Church Radio, an excellent running podcast that you should definitely check out. I can’t remember who said it – sorry if it was you! – but it goes something like this: “Don’t build your life around your training, build your training around your life.”

I tried to embrace that and let go of my the perfectionist devil on my shoulder, who tried to tell me that if I didn’t succeed 100% the whole thing was basically a sham.

So I’m going to do my best to see the month out at something like the 75% mark. I’m already entertaining notions of doing a long run once the month is over in which I ‘make up’ the summits I missed, which at this rate will be around an 8-rep session of Mangawhau. But we’ll see about that…

Yes, I only have one hat.

Routes

I use a variety of routes based on how I’m feeling.

I always approach Mt Eden from the north via the Tahaki Reserve and head up to the Puhi Huia Road roundabout either via the stairs or the grassy trail to the side of them, which I’ve taken to referring to as ‘The Mound.’

The ‘direct route’ straight up Mt Eden, on the right.

I really like this trail – it’s really quite steep, which I love, but it also really reminds me of trails back in the southeast of the UK. It’s a little overgrown, more a line of flattened grass than anything. It feels very organic and ungroomed.

From the roundabout, I usually take the trail directly adjacent to the road used by cyclists and walkers to get to the summit. Again, this offers a steep, off-road alternative, and seeing as I am training for a trail race (the Rotorua Running Festival 50k), I figure the more vert and off-road running I can get in the better.

Emily living the #SteepLife

Descending, I typically return to the roundabout via the road and go back down the stairs, but if I’m not quite satisfied with my run I’ll turn left instead of right when coming off the summit.

The fun way back.

A few hundred metres back down the road you can hop over the steel barriers and take a nice long singletrack trail all the way back around the west side of the mountain. This adds maybe a kilometre and another 30-40m of climbing (day 3 on the spreadsheet shows this.)

The end of the ‘return’ singletrack, on Mt Eden’s west face.

What I’m Learning

In my four years of running, consistency has always eluded me. I think it’s partly because I’ve not ever been strong enough, physically, to run the mileages I would like to. But it’s also because I have been injured enough in the past to now fear any little twinge or niggle, and back off when perhaps it would serve me better to run through it, cautiously.

When I started this challenge, I had one such twinge, in my lower left leg. It hasn’t gone away exactly, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised that, despite having climbed 2100m in sixteen days (plus another 300m of hiking not included), it hasn’t really gotten any worse. So long as I eat enough, sleep enough, and stretch enough, my body seems to be handling the load reasonably well.

Spot the selfie hand.

On day six I took part in a group run, which involved summiting not only Mt Eden but the nearby peaks of Mt St John and Mt Hobson as well, and during which I ran faster and harder than I perhaps should. The next day, my run was comically slow – I actually laughed out loud when I started. I felt like I was back at kilometre 45 at Tarawera, or on loop 6 at Riverhead.

But you know what? It felt good. It felt good to feel my body ache and yet shuffle along all the same. 71km in sixteen days is not much for many people, but paired with 2100m of climbing I think it’s a respectable figure.

I believe wholeheartedly in the idea that you should compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. And I am someone who has struggled to maintain consistency. Feeling the deep, warm ache in my legs a week or so in was really validating, and I can’t wait to nail the taper come November and see how my legs fare at my next race.

Number of times this train has stopped my run: 4