Week 6 - 45 days, 10 hours, 41mins (or so...) to go!

The blog's a bit late this week I'm afraid - it has been a bit of a hectic weekend! We saw an amazing talent from Malaysia - Bala, on Friday night, went to a delicious banquet to celebrate Chinese New Year with the Singaporean Club, courtesy of our wonderful neighbours, Matthew and Irene Ng, entertained the crowd at the Auckland 'Relay For Life' at Ericsson Stadium on Sunday morning and still had time to tramp around the Waitakere Ranges for just over 6 hours on Saturday!
We started Saturday's excursion with a hearty breakfast of porridge at 6am, then headed out to the Waitakeres. Entering at Exhibition Drive, we headed up the Pipeline track then the Summit track to the Upper Nihotupu Dam. From here we hit Christies track which proved to be somewhat more challenging than it appeared on the map!! The gorgeous Kathryn was severely handicapped through this section by her gripless shoes, which saw her performing some quite outstanding acrobatics, with spectacular landings. These daring feats had her poised, balanced on the edge of a precipice, landing rear-end first in mud and even losing her hat, all on separate occassions. Brent was engrossed in the workings of his new handheld GPS, which at one point had us doubling back, retracing steps........just a few minor teething problems!? The scenery was spectacular, the terrain challenging at times and the company, as always, was of the highest callibre! We then covered the Lower Huia Dam, the Parau track to the Lower Nihotupu Dam and the Huia Road back to Exhibition Drive and the car.
There were a few minor injuries as a result of the terrain - scratches and cuts to legs and heads, a strain in the top of my foot, and a couple of blisters due to having wet feet after fording a stream, but all in all a good test of stamina and teamwork. The thing I really like about this bunch though is that only minutes after we had completed this endeavour they are all planning next weeks excursion over coffee - 'what do you reckon, shall we just do 30km next week?' That's awesome stuff guys!!!
I know this is a long one and blogs are supposed to be short but......a big THANKS again to those of you who have deposited funds via our Oxfam page - much appreciated, especially the nice wee messages!
(this is the link: http://www.oxfam.org.nz/events/teams.asp?a=show_team_pages&eventid=24&teamid=4064. )
..............ALSO you probably all wonder what we talk about as we trudge about this city for hours on end......well, lately it's been all about our celebration party at the end of all this, so stay posted for more details, and keep Saturday 24th April free! TTFN :)

Week 5 - 53 days to go!

Who needs drugs to get a high!! Today Brent, Kathryn and I acheived our own dopamine induced "runners high" after completing just over 30kms in the rain, covering not 5....but 7 of Auckland's volcanoes! It must have been quite disconcerting for the other patrons of this small Pt. Chevalier Cafe to see three appearingly sane, but somewhat smelly adults in fits of uncontrollable giggles over.......well, who knows what it was about!!
Despite having completed almost this distance before, today was something of a challenge walking for 5 hours in wet feet, up and down said volcanoes, resulting in 3 x sore bums, 6 x aching feet, 1 x sore toe and a blister!
Many thanks to those of you who have made donations onto our official 'Loose Covers' (that's our team name) Oxfam webpage. The link for this is in last weeks post and here again if you missed it

http://www.oxfam.org.nz/events/teams.asp?a=show_team_pages&eventid=24&teamid=4064.

It's very cool....when you make a donation, we get an email telling us this has happened, your name goes on the webpage and our donations thermometer total goes up - just awesome! This makes all of our hard work seem worthwhile! :)

Week 4 - 60 days to go!

What a great week! The extra holiday on Anniversary Day, Monday allowed for Brent and I to slip in another quick 19km trot up Maungawhau and Owairaka. Hoorah! It was an excellent chance to try out our new 'Skins' compression gear which worked remarkably well! We have clocked up another 64kms this week, the highlight of which was a 21km night walk at Stillwater organised by the Oxfam people on Saturday night. This was the first time that our whole 'team' of 4, has been out together and it was an excellent test of how well we went on off-road tracks and in darkness. We completed the 21kms in 4hrs and were mostly still feeling pretty chipper at the end. All of us enjoyed the 'off-road' stuff, the scenery was beautiful and we managed to pick up some excellent tips for the 100km event, both from the organisers and those who had done it before (-yes...I know, you all think we are mad doing it once, BUT there are people out there who are doing it for their third or fourth time!)
I forgot to tell you all last week that Brent and I played our first 'gig' for Oxfam at the Tuakau Tavern and as well as collecting our fee that went straight to Oxfam, the Bar Manager also passed the hat around at the end of the night for further donations to the tune of $64.40. What an awesome gift - we were stoked!
We have been thrilled by the response we have had from friends and family to sponsor us in this endeavour and support Oxfam.
Just a little reminder of why we are doing this;

Oxfam go into areas immediately after disaster strikes and firstly restores water and sanitation.

You can help Oxfam right now by donating directly through our webpage on the following link

http://www.oxfam.org.nz/events/teams.asp?a=show_team_pages&eventid=24&teamid=4064

In the top right hand corner click on the

'Make a Difference DONATE NOW' button

You will be emailed a tax deductible receipt and these donations will show up against our team name - Loose Coverz.

That's all from us for this week. Coming soon to this blog space.....the support team strategy meeting; tackling the 70km Hillary track and dealing with all of those blisters and injury niggles that creep in as the mileage increases........I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait!!! :)
p.s. don't forget to check out the new pictures of Kathryn (as promised!) and the team doing our night walk (aren't those headlamps we are wearing impressive!!)

WEEK 3 - 67 Days to go!

Thanks to all those who have responded either as followers or by email to this madness we are involved in! Much appreciated! This week clocked up 70km in our quest for fitness and we have welcomed a new member, Kathryn Sandford, into our team. We have seen Kathryn on Owairaka since we started walking up there each morning and have exchanged pleasantries. She has a wonderfully warm personality and positive outlook which is what drew us to her. So, last week, after our usual greetings I said to Brent - what about that lady? Kathryn obviously has a great sense of adventure, because I'm sure that the majority of us women would have turned and fled at the sight of a sweaty bald man running after them yelling and waving his arms. instead she stoppped and came back, and unlike countless others did not immediately balk at the sound of 100km. We exchanged numbers and were to phone her the following day after providing her with the website to go check out this walk. On catching up with Kathryn the following morning we were thrilled to hear that she was keen - in fact a defininte yes!! It wasn't till our planned Saturday morning 30km hike that we found out 'the rest of the story'. Kathryn had been at friends on the Friday night telling them about this Oxfam Trailwalker that she had agreed to take part in as a team - you know 25km each. When her friends started laughing she had no idea what was so funny until they told her that she had in fact signed up to do the full 100km. At this point, poor Kathyrn was gob-smacked, slack-jawed and in definite need of at least one, if not more, stiff drinks! To her credit - she turned up on Saturday and completed the 30km with ease, no aches, pains or stiffness - AWESOME! (photo of Kathryn to follow).
We are now 'fully registered' for the TrailWalker and are required to fundraise at least $2500 before April 10th to support Oxfam. To those people who have already pledged financial support a huge thank you. AND if there are any others out there who would like to make a financial contribution of any size to this very worthy cause we would be most grateful. Please either leave a comment on the blog with your contact details or email us direct on bb.xian@gmail.com or brentonrice@gmail.com. All donations are tax deductable and are not required until the end of March 2010. Have a great week further. Catch you on Sunday with next weeks update. Bless ya! :)

WEEK 2

A days rest after the Waiheke ordeal, we were back in training early Monday morning with a quick jaunt up Mt Albert, easing out those screaming muscles and trying to remind them just who is the boss of these bodies!! Tuesday followed with a longer trail - 15km up to Great Nth Road, on to the summit of Mt Eden and back home via Pt Chev shops for a well deserved coffee (not sure if this is part of the recommended nutritional guidelines for this training ... but hey?!). Wednesday was another light day, back up Mt Albert and by this time the bodies were finally starting to feel almost normal again. Thursday brought its own interesting challenges - we had decided to start painting the outside of our house, but the weather had turned somewhat changeable, so we spent most of the day up and down scaffolding and ladders, dodging showers. Being very aware of our leg muscles by this time, it became extremely obvious just how many leg muscles are used to balance atop said scaffolds and ladders. Then at 5pm we headed off to Huia to join the 'Huia Bush Runners' for our first outing with them into the Waitakeres. The run started with a gruelling uphill on Exhibition drive, leaving me questioning my own sanity, never mind Brent's. Then it was up and over the fence and into the bush, over roots and trees, through the mud and finally out into a clearing. From here the track took us along the old train tracks, through a tunnel then onto the Hillary track. The upper part of this track had been recently upgraded and was nicely gravelled, however this soon petered out to become aptly named 'the Slip'. Running totally out of control down steep, muddy, uneven tracks certainly gets the adrenalin going, but did nothing for my beautiful new pink and black trail shoes which came out the other end looking more like bumper boats than high end sports shoes!! - edged in at least 5cm of mud all round, The rest of the run/walk was on gravel roads, past awesome scenery, up and down for what Stuart informed us was approx 5km round trip. All in all a rather pleasant hour in the bush. Friday morning we were back to Mt Albert summit and home via the coffee shop (if this coffee thing isn't part of the training diet, I strongly suggest that it should be!). Our local coffe shop is 'Trinity of Silver' in Mt Albert, and the lovely owners Prabhakar and Estella, have kindly agreed to be our first sponsors on our Trailwalk - Thank you! Awesome stuff!
Saturday dawned and it was time for a bit more distance. I had been checking out a few destinations and mapping them on 'MapMyRun' (an quick, easy to use tool if you are training for something or just to see how far you are moving - check out the link in our favourites). We finally decided on a warmup walk/run to Onehunga Basin (Beachcroft Ave) - which was just over 9km, follwed by the Coast to Coast Walkway from the Manukau to the Waitemata - another 15km, making a total of 24kms. The weather to start was somewhat cool, with intermittent showers, however we were setting such a scorching pace that the rain dried off instantly - yeah right! (You can check out the walkway on the Auckland City Website - see the coast2coast link in our favourites.) This time we were prepared with more 'on-the go'-type snacks and of course plenty of water. Things on the leg front went suprisingly well, however this time I was plagued with stomach issues, which ensued in regular and somewhat hasty 'pit-stops' at various public facilities! So, if you ever need to know where to locate a public toilet in Auckland - just ask me!!! Today is a rest day - aaaaaaaaagh! Time for much needed R & R, and to reflect on where to from here. As far as fund raising goes, Brent & I, are planning to do some busking - at the very least we figure people will pay us to stop playing if they don't like it OR alternatively, offer up their donations to hear more and support Oxfam.
Our team 'Loose Coverz' is to be made up of 4 people. At present we are being joined by our good friend Ramesh, and are still looking for our 4th team member. Any takers??? If you feel that this is you, please contact us asap by email or text or phone. We need to confirm our team by Wednesday 27th January, so ..... rattle your daggs!

THE PREPARATION BEGINS

As is our way......we jumped into our preparation at the deep end, going from a 5km morning walk to a 25km hike across Waiheke - the Wharf2Wharf (16.01.10). We caught the ferry from downtown Auckland at 6:45 to Orapiu, and by 8:30am we were off on our way to Matiatia wharf 'a pied'. The first 13km to Palm Beach were reasonably pleasant with the excitement of a beautiful day, some interesting company and great scenery making the up hill and down dale terrain quite bearable. From this point on however certain parts of our anatomy were reminding us of thier existence and demonstrating their dislike of this prolonged exertion. We kept up a steady 6km/hr pace however right to the end, despite the last 5km being the longest that I have ever travelled. From Matiatia wharf we hobbled onto a ferry home 3hrs55mins after leaving Orapiu. By the time we arrived in Downtown Auckland we were both almost seized up in our seats and very aware of the fact that we had some SERIOUS training to do before we would be able to complete 100km!! For the next few days we 'winced' about the house, even something as ordinary as getting on and off a chair became an event of epic proportions.
What we have learnt from this:
1. Preparation is everything!
2. Having a spa helps soothe aching muscles
3. Make sure you take snacks that you can eat while you walk. (We had scroggin, muesli bars, and lots of water which were great energy boosters along the way but we could have done with some more as by the time we got back to Auckland we were ravenous!)
4. We need to put some serious mileage behind us before we will be ready - Oxfam suggests about 75km a week at this stage going up to 100km before the big day - APRIL 10th!!!

SMALL BEGINNINGS

Once we moved to our new house in Mt Albert, Brent and I started a daily tradition, walking to the top of Mt Albert and back. I don't know how it came about but from this small beginning, and our desire to 'pay it forward' we found ourselves registered to complete the Oxfam Trailwalk - 100km in 36hrs. (for more info see the Oxfam Trailwalker Link on our list of favourite sites). This blog will be a record of our training, trials and tribulations and eventual completion of said task. As well as the physical side of this endeavour, each team is required to fundraise for Oxfam to the tune of at least $2500, however the more money we are able to raise the better. Oxfam are very visible wherever there is help required after a major tragedy such as the recent Tsunami in Samoa and the Earthquake in Haiti. So... this is a majorly good cause to be supporting; a chance for us to test ourselves, physically and mentally and for you all to share vicariously through our blog and hopefully this will inspire you to become involved yourselves or just get moving!