Trail running for scaredy-cats
Getting out in nature seems more important than ever – but what if that’s not your natural environment? Eugene Bingham knows how that feels.
In the trail running world, there are many who are out-and-out adventurers. You’ll find them on the top of mountain ridgelines in southerly storms yahooing, wearing a crazed grin (and appropriate gear, of course). This is their world – and they are in their element.
But I’m another variety.
At my heart, if I’m honest, I’m a chicken. My natural environment is somewhere tame. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting out for a run in the rain – every droplet is a salve, washing away the worries of the world carried on my overthinker’s shoulders.
But when it comes to New Zealand’s great, wild, open, I’m a scaredy-cat.
What if I get lost? What if I trip and get stuck? Sometimes my lack of confidence reduces me to all fours.
I remember running in the bush with a group of good mates once when we came across a stream with deep banks. It could only be crossed via a flimsy, narrow plank. To me, it might as well have been a tightrope.
Across they all went, striding over it without thinking.
I froze. ‘‘Uh, oh,’’ or words to that effect. I thought, ‘‘If I try that, I’ll lose my balance and fall, I just know it.’’
I hung back until everyone else was on the other side, desperately trying to figure out an alternative. But there wasn’t one.
There was nothing else for it: I dropped to my knees and made my way across, gripping the sides of the makeshift bridge of wood and chicken wire.
On the other side, the surge of adrenalin, the thrill of, ‘‘ha, I did it, albeit my way’’, made the trepidation all worth it (even with the ribbing I got from my mates).
I often think about that moment. It’s hardly my finest hour. But it reminds me of what running and friendship give me.
Trail running provides a reason to push myself, friends make it fun and fill me with a confidence I lack on my own.
It’s like the parts of my brain that hold me back, that normally think, ‘‘Oh, wait, is that safe?’’, let me have a leave pass if I’m heading into the bush with my mates.
On the Dirt Church Radio podcast this week, cohost Matt Rayment and I spoke with ultramarathon runner Sarah Hillary.
She got into running 20 years ago, prompted by friends. Soon, she joined a group of women who would meet once a week after work to run on trails around Auckland, heading out in the dark.
‘‘When I first started, I had the most terrible head torch, so I could barely see what I was doing,’’ she says.
Driving to the trail in the pitch black of winter, she’d think, ‘‘Oh, is this a good idea?’’
‘‘But it was always exciting once you got there. Once you get out there and you’re running, it’s always exhilarating.’’
Now, Sarah is no scaredy-cat like me. She grew up surrounded by adventure, heading out into nature all the time – her parents were great lovers of the outdoors and her father, yes, is Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Everest.
But she, too, understands and thrives on the joy of running with friends on the trails.
And she thinks, now, more than ever, in this post-Covid world when it felt like everything was closing in, that we need to rediscover the great outdoors.
‘‘You want the younger generation to learn about parks and get off their screens and discover these wild areas that have all this beautiful forest and bush because they’re the ones we want to encourage to look after it in the future too,’’ she says.
The closure of much of the Waitakere Ranges over recent years because of the tree-killing kauri dieback disease has saddened her.
While she understands the need to protect the trees, and save them for future generations, she hopes the work that needs to be done to get the trails reopened can happen quickly.
‘‘I hope more of it can be reopened again, it’s so important for Aucklanders, especially at this time of Covid-19 when we need to get out.’’
And at a time when we can’t travel far, what better place to seek adventure than on your own back doorstep?
‘‘We’re so fortunate to have [the Waitakere Ranges], having that wild environment.’’
She wants people to get out and enjoy nature – ‘‘we want people to be fit and to be able to push themselves beyond their every day’’.
And running has a part in that. ‘‘I can’t imagine doing a lot of the runs I’ve done if I hadn’t been encouraged by other people, or they were available as a race. You wouldn’t necessarily get out there.’’
I hear her. And after lockdown, I’m even more grateful for the time I’ll get to spend with my mates, heading to the places fear-inhibited me never would, pushing myself.
Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even run across that bridge.
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
What if I get lost? What if I trip and get stuck? Sometimes my lack of confidence reduces me to all fours.