This weekend I raced The Goat, which is a ~20km mountain run from Whakapapa to Turoa, along the western slopes of Mount Ruapehu.
It’s a beautiful but brutal course - a lot more scrambling, scree, and rock climbing and a lot less packed trail than I had mentally prepared for. I managed to get around with only one face plant and tagged knee. The last 5km climbs from 1233m at Mangaturuturu Hut to 1624m at the ski field finish, including the final 2km “mamas mile” up the road, by which point everybody was looking pretty broken.
I was stoked to finish in 3h 11m, in 135th place overall. The data file from my watch recorded 1163m of vertical ascent (and 2402 calories burnt, yo!)
I don’t normally bother with official race photos, but this one taken half way up the famous “Waterfall” was just too good to pass up:
If you look closely you can see there is one small spot on my shirt which isn’t soaked in sweat. It took me a while to work out this is just the thick part of my heart rate monitor strap.
More photos:
It’s a great event, and I throughly recommend it to you.
There are only 600 places available each year, so keep an eye out for registration for the 2015 race soon!