Over a few beers, I stumbled across the Red Bull Conquer the Coast. http://www.redbullconquerthecoast.co.nz.
From what i can gather, its a 60km off road run, set in the Waitakeres, utilising some of the Hillary Trail. It seems there will be elements of navigation required, parts of climbing/groveling and some duration of night time navigation.

Something about it has piqued my curiosity. Now I'm certainly no ultra marathon runner, but no coach potato either. I can currently train pretty comfortably at 10km. What do i need to do to get my run fitness up to scratch - I'm not setting out to win. But rather make it achievable.

Any tips, or nudges in the right direction greatly appreciated!

Just start increasing your running distance/time. You should not worry about speed just get use to running for a long time. Sounds like a interesting event, pity it's so far away.

Sims wrote:Over a few beers, I stumbled across the Red Bull Conquer the Coast. http://www.redbullconquerthecoast.co.nz.
From what i can gather, its a 60km off road run, set in the Waitakeres, utilising some of the Hillary Trail. It seems there will be elements of navigation required, parts of climbing/groveling and some duration of night time navigation.

Something about it has piqued my curiosity. Now I'm certainly no ultra marathon runner, but no coach potato either. I can currently train pretty comfortably at 10km. What do i need to do to get my run fitness up to scratch - I'm not setting out to win. But rather make it achievable.

Any tips, or nudges in the right direction greatly appreciated!

Yeah obvious thing is to up your mileage, but make sure you do plenty of running on the type of terrain you will encounter. My longest off road is 33km, and i am sure there are many more qualified people to comment, but running on road doesnt prepare you adequately for the concentration required, the uneveness and the joint flexibility, as well as the increased effort from having to go up, over and round things all the time. If nothing else, run along verges, find stuff to jump over etc. People look at you a bit funny though.

Oh and if you can, do some of the xterra series that is on at the moment. It will give you a good idea.

As a regular mountain biker that trained for and ran the Auckland marathon last year I started from a position of running 10km, then upped it slowly depending what felt comfortable. I generally aimed for 1 really long run a week (would feel knackerd at the end), and I live about 9km from work, so started running to and from work once fit enough. It took me about 4 months to get properly marathon fit. 60km is quite a lot further so just start slow and build up slowly. I have had archiles problems in the past so it might be possible to build up quicker, but I was playing it safe.

I found lining up lots of regular events prior to the big one to be helpful. Spent a spring + summer running in races like local events and ones in the Kawekas and Holdsworth -Jumbo and Ruapehu before the highlight of the Tararua mountain run. A fair bit of training helped, but nothing prepares you for a race pace run, like another race pace run.
http://www.tararua-race.org.nz/race_det ... ain_images

The other thing to do is get out on the course, go do the Hillary Trail. This will mean you're more comfortable with the terrain and the tracks will be familiar when it comes to navigating them in the dark.

There are a few ways to do the Hillary Trail. I did it by starting after work on Friday, doing the day 1 section finishing in the dark. Then did Day 2, 3 and part of Day 4 on Sat, then finished at Muriwai before lunch on Sunday.

Day 2 and 3 in one day, then finish with the big Day 4 on the Sunday would be my recommendation. Night 1 and 3 campsites can be driven to so have someone come meet you with supplies and a tent/bed.

If the date works, it'll see you on the start line.