When adventure calls, just go for it
Deep into one of the toughest running challenges Tim Sutton had ever faced, all he wanted to do was sit down in a thicket of weeds.
The sharp spikes of a Spaniard plant poked into him painfully, but he didn’t care. He just needed to lie down with his legs in the air for a little bit.
This is the reality of running adventures, Sutton-style.
His experience with the inhospitable high country flora during the Revenant race in Southland last month sounds extreme, but it epitomises the type of running he enjoys – finding a challenge, and pushing himself. But most of all, finding an adventure.
Sutton speaks to me and cohost Matt Rayment on the Dirt Church Radio podcast this week about the sorts of running that might seem out of reach to most of us. But in fact, what he describes is achievable for all of us if we scale it according to our abilities.
I’ll admit that while I love having adventures, in my heart I am a scaredy-cat. I push myself, sure, but I’m never really far from being the kid who was once rescued from a flying fox at primary school one lunchtime when I was too scared to get down (thanks Mr Bremner, I think).
I generally confine my most extreme (by which I mean, yes, my timid version of extreme) adventures for race time, finding races when I can push my limits, go places I wouldn’t normally venture knowing in the back of my mind that if it all turns to custard, there’s back-up at hand.
But talking to Sutton reminded me that, actually, adventure is what you make it, and where you make it.
Sure, you can travel the world to find extreme places to do extreme things if that’s your thing. But maybe, for you, right now, adventure is out your back door.
Adventure is having a crack at something you’ve never tried before, that you’d been too scared to attempt. It’s exploring somewhere new – or even exploring somewhere old, but with fresh eyes.
It’s doing something that breaks you out of your ordinary, everyday life, that makes you breathe life anew in your lungs.
For Sutton, that means running through big, open, mountainous landscapes. Which is why you’ll regularly find him in the Tararua Range, attempting runs that were once considered multi-day hikes, following in the hiking boot-clad footprints of his childhood heroes.
Getting out into the wild open is part of what attracted him to the Revenant, a race that was definitely not for the faint of heart.
To finish, entrants had to complete 190km with 16,000m of ascent, relying on their own navigation skills to make it around the four-lap course within 60 hours. No one made it.
Not even the United States Navy Seals who came to give it a crack. Not even Sutton.
For him, the beginning of the end came during the second lap when, about a third of the way through a 900m climb, his legs just decided they wouldn’t work any more.
‘‘I lay down in the middle of this 4WD track I was on with my feet sticking up in the air and my head pointing down the hill trying to drain some of the s..t that had built up in my legs,’’ he says.
‘‘I was lying right in the middle of a Spaniard weed and I didn’t care – it was bliss.’’
After a few minutes’ rest, he got back on his feet. But not long after that, his race was over. Being the runner he is, though, Sutton has not been put off. Far from it. He’s already planning his strategy for next year.
Not me. The Revenant frankly terrifies me, and I’m OK with that. I know that I can find my adventures elsewhere, and I know that, for me, there will be other ways I can push myself, enjoying the camaraderie of those who come along for the journey. Eugene Bingham and Matt Rayment are hosts of a trail running podcast Dirt Church Radio. Learn more at dirtchurchradio.com or get in touch via email dirtchurchradio@gmail. com