Wright ready to rack up 1000km run
If one step is roughly one metre, Kaece Wright is about to take a million of them, to get from Bluff to Picton in 19 days. A rough count of 52,600 steps a day.
The 23-year-old from Ashley will embark on the 1000km journey on foot, with a goal of raising $20,000 for the journey – a meager $20 per km – to be split between the Stroke and Cancer Societies.
‘‘Cancer and strokes have affected my family and friends deeply over the years, so for me, this is my way of giving back to the two charities by doing something that I love, but to a massive extent,’’ Wright said.
The former New Zealand tennis representative has always been a keen athlete.
‘‘I played all the sports at school and always enjoyed running. I’ve always been pretty active and I guess that’s one thing that kicked off with this run is I obviously can’t sit still.’’
The traverse has been three years in the planning, with several route changes and flipflopping over whether she would run up or down the island.
‘‘It has been like a full time job. I’ve found the running part has been the down time.’’
She has done the hard yards organising the event, now she just has to do the actual hard yards.
Wright is mentally undaunted by the long haul days, perfecting going into a meditative state as she pounds the pavement, but wouldn’t mind some company along the way.
‘‘I’ll have the support crew follow me the whole way, a tag team of people doing different legs.
‘‘I’ll be doing it day in, day out for 20 days, so hoping people can put their shoes on for a bit of a run with me to lift my spirits.’’
With some of the roads not deemed safe for running along with a slow moving support car, and the need for rest days, Wright will take to the bike for four legs of the journey.
Wright leaves Bluff on November 1 with the aim of getting to Picton by November 19. Once she reaches Picton, there is no plan on what she’ll do next.
‘‘People have asked what I’ll do with my life once it is done but I just don’t know. This whole thing has been three years of planning so I don’t even know where I’m going to go.’’
She could jump on the ferry and do the North Island or turn around and come back down the South Island, but most likely she will put her feet up – for a few days at least.