Hillary Hardcore – making a solo splash on New Zealand’s revered 75km

This is a great read from Sally Law. She and her man Mal are mates of mine and two of the awesomest people you could hope to get stuck in a wilderness with. New Zealand’s Hillary Trail has been subject to a growing number of solo runs, fastest known time attempts and even doubles over the years, and a recent effort to launch an official race there was scuttled over environmental concerns regarding impacts on a native plant species. It would be incredible to see that event actually get up, though, as it would attract the same level of interest as Kepler and Routeburn in next to no time.

This is a quick video of what a run on the Hillary looks like.

Anyway, we were reading some posts by Sal on the weekend when she up and ran the HT. I didn’t realize until seeing her writeup on Facebook this morning that she actually swam half of it. So I’ve pinched the story and it’s here until she tells us to take it down. Enjoy!

Sally Law, 75km in the bag and fresh as a daisy 🙂

Hillary Trail Run Report.
75kms of hilly single track.
Start: 05:00 18th August
Finish: 18:03
13hrs03.

It had rained often during the preceding 2 weeks and poured down for several hours the night before. Therefore the sound of water is what I recall most about the first half of the run all the way from Arataki to Karekare: dripping, gurgling and the splashing of my feet on muddy trails that were quite often doubling as waterways.