The limits of human physicality never fail to astonish me. Just when you get your head around some super human feat someone goes and completely moves the goalposts yet again. I saw this firsthand this weekend when endurance runner Glenn Sutton started a stopwatch and set about running constantly for 24 hours. Mad, right? Completely, but there is method in his madness.
Glenn's 24-hour run was part of his training for the 2015 edition of Badwater 135 – a 217km running event held from California's Death Valley to the Mt Whitney portal. It's called "the world's toughest foot race" for good reason: temperatures in Death Valley soar to 50°C with ground temperatures as high as 80°C. To top it all off he has to climb almost 4000m of vertical ascent during the race, which took him 36 hours to complete last year. He is the only Kiwi to be accepted into the gruelling event for 2015.
“I know what to expect now, so that possibly makes it harder,” he laughs. “But I am wiser. I know a few tricks from running it last year and I’d like to better my time and place. I’m hungry for it.”
Glenn completed 127 laps of the Anderson Bay inlet – more than 209km – and was joined on nearly every lap by friends, family, supporters or just those intrigued by his physical and mental endurance capabilities. I'm pretty sure his last lap was one of the fastest ...
“I had work colleagues, friends, family, and nana even ran three laps," offers Glenn. "I didn’t get a chance to have any dark moments – it was unusual because I mostly run alone and often talk to myself, so to always have someone there chatting away was cool. One guy even did a lap in the nude and I met some people catching octopuses – they had 13 I think and kept coming back for more. The turnout was really humbling.”
Glenn heads to Darwin in five weeks and then LA as he acclimatises for the heat expected to greet him on the start line in Death Valley at the end of July.
While Glenn ran laps, across Otepoti a different physicality was playing out with a long-period swell delivering one of the punchiest lineups we've seen for a long time. Blackhead was a cool six foot, but breaking with a Puerto Escondido-esque intensity. This was no playground for the masses. Tackling the pits were Jamie Gordon, Dale Hunter, Tom Bracegirdle, Luke Grubb and Lew Thomas. It was one of those sessions that was as frustrating as it was rewarding. Lots of water churning about as waves detonated all over the place. Barrels engulfed the brave and getting caught inside meant you may have to duckdive a Grade 6 rapid to get out the back. It looked beautiful from the safety of the beach, but it was an intense session in the water.
And there's more to come. Check out this forecast before you plan your Wednesday or Friday.
See you at the beach ... Derek
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