Why Luca the unstoppable scaled the Mount 40 times in a day
Many a Mount Maunganui resident has climbed the local maunga and enjoyed the views from the top.
But very few people will have run to the top of the Mount 152 times in 50 days, including 40 times in one day alone.
That is the impressive feat which Luca Ahumada-percoco achieved recently.
The 27-year-old moved to New Zealand from Argentina a year ago and has fallen in love with the country, as well as the opportunities for adventure it provides.
“I came here on March 13 last year and started working in Tauranga,” he said.
“I had never run before, apart from a couple of 10km in my home country, but as time went by I felt like I was lacking something.”
He did some browsing online and came across the Wild Things trail running group on Facebook.
He was inspired.
“It showed all the different things they were doing around the country and I wanted to try it myself. I started running and in August I ran 22km, including up the Mount once.”
Ahumada-percoco became fascinated by how far he could push himself and started slowly increasing his distances, introducing more and more ascents up the mountain.
A love affair with running up Mauao began to blossom.
“Every time, I would go up more times. In October, I ran 30km including five times up the Mount. I was gassed after that.
“I just kept going and in December I went up 10 times in one go. I was dead after that also.”
In January, he came across the idea of Everesting. This involves picking a hill, anywhere in the world, and completing repeats of it in a single activity until you climb 8848m — the equivalent height of Mount Everest.
“That’s about 40 times up Mount
Maunganui,” Ahumada-percoco said.
He started training seriously for an attempt but decided that he wanted to challenge himself even further.
Ahumada-percoco decided on 152 times, the equivalent of four times up Mount Everest, in 50 days. This culminated in 40 ascents in 21 hours on the final day.
“Why? Because I’m kind of crazy, as you can tell, and I wanted to give it my own touch. Between March 8 and April 9 I did 112 summits, three times the Everest height, and then took two weeks off to heal.
“On April 25 I started at 1am and finished at 10pm. It was just a whole day going up and down.”
He said he felt a whole range of emotions when he finished.
“I am used to doing things on my own but the support people gave me was essential to what I achieved. I had friends there supporting me all day.
“There were times I was really down but friends cheered me up, made jokes and made sure I was all right. It gives you that extra something.
“When I finished, I wouldn’t say I was excited because I was just so tired, but it was great. It was especially great because I was able to share it with people I care about — funnily enough, people who I have only met since coming here to New Zealand.”
Ahumada-percoco made a special mention of Paul Inglis, a 31-year-old Kiwi who joined him for 10 of the 40 ascents on the day, despite having not trained for it.
He said he might not be ready to tackle Mount Maunganui again for a while but whenever he did it would be special.
“I feel I really am connected to this country now.
“New Zealand is just great for doing this sort of thing, it’s all about having fun and meeting new people.”