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Race Reports
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HANMER SPRINGS TRAINING CAMP REPORT November 2010
A cold and rainy Friday afternoon may have seen the mere mortals of Western Civilization retire to the comforts of home living, but it was not enough to deter a group of Canterbury athletes from making the trip up from Christchurch to Hanmer Springs. The intention was simple; escape the confines of our urban life for the weekend of November 5th – 7th, 2010 and get back to our ancestral roots… run, run, run like antelopes escaping a summer fire. This would all take place in the evergreen forests and thigh searing slopes that Hanmer so has in abundance. With all athletes finally arriving Friday night in their respective chariots, quick introductions and eloquent conversation took place before we descended back in time to our lives as tribal men and as one woman who could squat really amazingly well. Our leader Coach Craig Motley cooed and clicked a time of 8.30am for the next day in which the first training session would begin. Shortly thereafter everyone retire to their stacks of hay and dreamed.
Saturday morning brought more cold and rain similar to that of the day before. But as sure as the sun will rise in the east, at exactly 8.30am all members of the tribe assembled, except for the sleeping Lion, Rowan Hooper, who no one dared wake for fear of his vicious roar. Being a Lion, Rowan did not have to run this weekend and was here instead to plot his next big race. Us others would do the hunting this day. Ning showed up as all real tribal men should… half naked, clad only in the shortest of shorts despite the chilly rain. Outside our cave of residence, monkey business from Kelly Palmer saw all other tribal members thinking, “What the f***?” before the tribe set off on their first training session. Most members of the tribe were going to do a 7km tempo run, but quickly into the warm up the Alpha male “Wood” veered off do his own thing for training. His session would be a hard one… hill reps repeated to the point of acidosis, with a few more chucked in for good measure. Chief Motley stayed behind to witness this lean but muscular warrior storm up hill after hill, while the rest of us continued on our way towards the forest just outside of Hanmer Central. Soon the tribe was striding effortlessly around the forest on their tempo, with Luke Hurring leading the way as all decent men do. Ning, Jason, Simon, Gus and Kellie followed suit, but two were to be left behind; myself and our intrepid Swiss adventurer, Manuel who had discovered this odd tribe a few weeks before in his journeys of discovery. Making our way back to our cave of residence, news quickly followed that both “The Woods” session and tribes’ session had been an absolute success! The hoopla that followed woke our sleeping Lion Rowan (who we had now adopted as our pet) and he came up from his underground den, only to sit down again, eagerly Awaiting brunch.
Despite being tribal and harder than concrete, which the Roman’s would one day make famous, hygiene was well kept and all members bathed (not together thankfully) before hunter-gathering took place. This saw the tribe head into Four Square Supermarket for resources, before everyone reassembled at the so amply named, POWERHOUSE café for coffee and food. Damn good and well fed our Chief, Craig Motley, again cooed and clicked that there would be a core session at precisely 12.15pm at his cave. With the sun still hiding behind a dark blanket of cloud and rain, some tribal members found it rather difficult to read their sun dials. Soon enough though, all had arrived and a searing pain hit all as our manliness was tested against the pits of our own bodies. Crunches, planks, squats and too much talking…Ning did it all and so did we. By this time Gus had evolved much earlier than us tribal folk. Though his hair was still shaggy he turned to technology and provided some rather strange cricket-ing sounds along with rock power ballards and some Dr Dre to keep us motivated through the pain of our core session. Miss Palmer continued to show off, and The Wood just dominated and was used repeatedly as an example of true manliness…the rest of us quietly struggled, apart from the occasional “Shut-up Ning!”
Saturday afternoon was a time for reflection, prayer, and contemplation. Most of us just slept or watched Sky Sport 1, 2 and 3 but by 5pm more running took place. By this time some members of the tribe had evolved and left us for the coastal town of Kaikoura (Simon) and our pet Lion still slept and roared. Gus-bo Wuss-bo decided to stay behind to look after Rowan, but the rest of us set out on a 45min-60min run up Jack’s Pass I do believe? The rain came back and stayed during this run, as someone had pissed the rain gods off big time. It was a rather joyous occasion and we gently coasted along the gravel road. Half-wishing I had done the tempo earlier I decided to stride out a bit and left the others to continue their run. Afterwards we all met back at our cave before heading out to get Indian takeaways and Fish & Chips for dinner. That night we witnessed Luke Hurrings’ bros get smashed by the Bloody Aussies in the League, before switching over to watch and find that the Black Caps can in fact play cricket. Now Gus, Ning and Luke love a good yarn about anything… and the topic of the day was of course cricket by this point. Then it was sleepy time.
Someone during the middle of the night must have done a sun dance. (I reckon it was Jason) but Luke in particular was ecstatic, for the Sunday long run up through Jollies and back around to Hanmer would be done under a most magnificent clear blue sky. By this point, our pet Lion Rowan had run away from us and was missed… but he will sure enough be back to train hard soon enough. After witnessing the All Blacks trample over an English rose bed, the tribe then again set off for the long run, with a quick stop outside the chiefs’ place to take some video footage for a new National Geographic show on Hinterland Tribes. Quite upsettingly our gutsy warrior Ning, succumbed to a bit of injury early on into the run and had to turn back. He got back up though onto a bike (horse perhaps?) and rode the distance that the rest of the tribe was already running. Jason and Luke lead the way up Jollies with The Wood, Gus and Kellie not too far behind.
A couple of hours later we had returned from our savageness and became civilized folk once again. A quick but very decent clean up of the house took place just before the move out time of 12pm rolled round. Another stop at POWERHOUSE café saw us all learn the English language again, and we sipped our Lattes, Mochas…oh for f*** sake we were a bunch metro-sexual men plus one woman again…
A fantastic weekend was thus completed and we returned to Christchurch in different bands; tired but satisfied and with a burning desire to one day return again.
Hayden McLaren
Camp Motley, May 2007.
My (Ning’s) perspective.
In staggered fashion the Motley Crew, club members and assorted associates rendezvoused in three luxurious Hanmer grottos on the 11th of May, 2007. The mission briefing was to train ourselves into the crooked earth. We left the logistics of personnel relocation up to the Maggot, and things seemed to run smoothly.
Right from the outset two things were utterly obvious: 1) Matt Ingram was here to do a LOT of running; 2) Matt Ingram can’t estimate the weight of Marsupials. Either that or he doesn’t know the difference between possums and cougars. That oddity aside, the first night went swimmingly with a liberal smattering of smack talking and the standard Motley led introductions. Bed time followed, but not before the girls made a grisly discovery in their bunk room. For once, grisliness and the Maggot didn’t go hand in hand… as far as we know.
A crisp Saturday morning welcomed the runners; DK, Hoop-daddy, LT and Harlen had far more sense. An hour of Motleys drills was a felicitous warm up to what turned into an epic set of hill reps. All agreed it was a deadly session, and I believe it was unanimously enjoyed. A quick shower and a bite and then it was time for the hardest session of the weekend: stretching. Some of the lads showed that they could be quite delightful little dancers with their flexibility rivaling Frances ‘baby’ Houseman herself. Others showed that they were true men by barely touching their knees. A core session followed; Mr Athletics added a couple more beers to his 8-pack and the girls roundly embarrassed the boys with their core strength.
Gaela Kilgour, bless her soul, had prepared a spread of gargantuan proportions for the hungry athletes, summed up best by Terry Harlen: “to be honest, it wouldn’t take too much for me to jump into bed with this feed, that’s how good I think it is”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
All fueled up, and goals set, it was time for another trot around the Dog stream. Things got a bit silly as Ingram cantered into a tempo-run, the Cooze led us up a cliff face, and then Wugo refused to go a step further. Everyone seemed to make it back to base camp however, with Gus getting in a few cheeky kick-flips before dinner.
After the mockery that was ordering dinner in our last Hanmer expedition, the Saturday night takeaway was surprisingly as efficient as Hooper is at collecting degrees. Curries were the order of the day. It didn’t fare well for the sanctity of the morning run.
With everyone as tired as Gus’s ‘Andy’ joke, there was undisputed support for an early night. Curiously there was a queue for the toilet at precisely 1:30am. As strange as Guns Baxter’s bucking bronco business.
The savage earliness of the Sunday run was complimented by the savageness of the first climb. Even Richard “Rabs” Olsen was quiet, a pity as we could have done with his dead-ringer impersonations to jolly us along. Running between 90 and 180 minutes it would be fair to say that everyone emptied their tanks, except Dom.
(I can also tell ya, when a pack of loping timberwolves makes a bee-line for you after 150 minutes of running, you have to hope that their intentions are amicable. Ingram and I, dare I say it, fair shat ourselves when those hounds appeared.)
Getting home completely shattered and having to tidy a runner-smelling house was a low point, but at least there was no hot water left because I really didn’t want a warm shower. I wasn’t the only one packing a sad at this point, so we quickly headed for a relaxing coffee/swim/pie in town before people gradually filtered off home. Gus, Wugo and myself had the inspired idea (probably my idea) to sit in the snowy waters of the Hurunui river for 15 minutes on the way home. Unsure what everyone else did, but I’ll bet it involved some driving. Perhaps a bit of fevering too in the case of our master and commander Craig.
And then the weekend was over.
On reflection; they say that when under extreme adversity one learns a lot about oneself. As a runner one is constantly hence partaking in a campaign of self discovery. Over a weekend like this however the collective group agony brings the lesser known secrets of each individual’s souls to the fore. We all knew, for instance, that Mr Athletics putts from the rough; but I now know that he can swing a big driver at a ball, or some balls at a Maggot, like a pro. Matt Harris, we discovered, gives up on hill reps and sometimes gives up on a whole weekend, but we all hope he won’t give up on humanity. Dominic Channon is the size of Craig Motley’s four year old son, but finds lost toys like someone twice that age, and digs into an ass like...no appropriate comparison. Wugo Beamish is a guy who knows what he wants: when he says 45 minutes he means 45 minutes, if he wants to rifle through another mans undies by God he will do it. If you want someone who cuts all the shit and says it how he sees it, you want Gus “the male model from Mudgie” Taylor. He won’t stand for a joke or two however, bloody serious guy. Annabelle has never been to the land of Nod, nor is she likely to ever get through its border control unless she trades her shoes for boots and gloves for mittens. Dave King: part time contortionist, freaky!
Just when you thought he couldn’t get any more outrageous the Maggot turns out to be the original drummer from the Spice Girls back-up band. How did he ever have time to mount multiple Louis Vuitton challenges, rise to the rank of Corporal in the army and be Peter Fulton’s play-thing.
Leyton is an aggressive salesman, burning opposition products in a scene reminiscent of The Night of Broken Glass. Kerry is quite superb at reading from children’s books, but struggles when it comes to the challenge of the Barney puzzle. Alex is a fan of BYOF (bring your own food) at Cafes. If Coozeborne isn’t wearing tights, he isn’t running. Finally, the Motley family has just had some very exciting news!
And such are the lessons we learn. As to whether anyone learnt anything about me, I cannot speculate. I will leave you with one little piece of my mind to ponder however: history is written by the winner, and history will records that a hurricane brewed up Ski-Field road on Saturday the 12th of May, 2007.
Until next time
Andy ‘Ning’ Davidson; not the Jetboat Driver.
Epilogue: Monday
In the aftermath of Camp Motley three chosen warriors strode forth to face the final challenge: a ‘Motley special’ of 1km reps, bugger all recovery. Messr.’s Ingram, Taylor and Davidson let rip on this balmy evening, tearing even bigger holes in their gaping masks of sanity. For Davidson and Ingram it was reminiscent of the Timaru Gorges fiasco of 2005, with both men groaning like the undead by rep number 6. Young Mr. Taylor threw down a taste of things to come (?) on rep 4 before doing what he does best. Olsen strangely appeared at this point (perhaps wanting a ‘taste’ too) to join Taylor on his final effort.
If the tanks were empty following Sunday’s epic, then they had been refilled with surplus rum and emptied again on Monday night. It will take some time for those motors to run smoothly again after such insult, but when they do they will run with the finesse of the Dutch Baroque.
THE Timaru ROUND THE Gorge Relay: ‘A’ Team’s Version Of Events
By Rowan Hooper
Road relays are a peculiar event. They consists of three basic tasks: task 1 involves getting all your runners to the start line on time, task 2 involves ensuring they all have absolute blinders and task 3 requires the insertion of a spanner in the workings of the opponent teams. Only by understanding the physiology and psychology of a race will a team run to its true potential.
Therefore it was no surprise to see Angus Taylor running the first leg for the A team. Nothing demoralises an opponent more than having your team’s youngest runner (or in the case of veteran teams the oldest) sitting on their shoulder and refusing to budge. And if this happens on the opening leg, well it can demoralise entire teams. And I guess this was our plan, though I’m not sure as at the time I was undertaking some reconnaissance (doubters have claimed that I was lost, but they don’t understand race psychology, I don’t like racing blind and so it was with the team’s best interests in heart that I headed off to check out the lap 7/8 changeover rather than heading to the lap 1/2 changeover like I was supposed to). But I digress; Gus ran his 8.5 km leg in 28:15 finishing with a clear gap on the rest of the field, dealing a strong psychological blow to our opponents.
Next up was Dave King whose job was to cement the gains from leg 1 on this so-called downhill leg. This he duly did by running 27:58 for 8.2 km. I would like to comment more on this leg, but at the time I was carrying out a rather important task. For our leg 3 runner was Chris Honiss, a first year senior, who had a rather large hill in his leg. Now first year seniors are fragile creatures and I had some concern over the impact that such a hill could have on Chris’s mental state. Fortunately by studying the physiology of the individual a cunning plan was hatched. By driving Chris half way round the south island, instead of directly to his changeover, he naturally thought we were lost and so when we finally arrived at the leg 2/3 changeover Chris was in the perfect state of anxiety for a running race, with all thoughts of that hill forgotten. When I next saw Chris he was storming up the hill, distancing all behind him and I must admit to feeling a touch of pride in my role in this performance (26:14 for 7.3 km).
Leg 4 is the King stage of this relay. A long straight leg designed for your top runner. This was a job for Matt Ingram and it also helps show the different psychologies that make-up a relay running team. While I had been driving all over God’s half acre Matt had been driving the other team vehicle calmly and efficiently from changeover to changeover. Needless to say this leg went well with the gap between us and the rest of the field continuing to grow, hardly surprising when you consider Matt ran 10.8 km in 34:06, not forgetting that there was quite a bit of uphill in this leg as well. At this point the race seemed to be won and so I invite the reader to insert his or her own fat lady reference here. But this was a relay race, there was a distinct lack of fat ladies on the course and so we have another 4 legs to describe.
Leg 5 was the short one. For this we had David Bennison who knocked out the 5.9 km in 23:12. At this point in proceedings our focus changed from those behind (the other A grade teams) to those in front (specifically our B and women teams who had started 40 minutes before us). The question was how many of those teams up the road could we catch?
And so the hunt began. Next to chase was Ben Osborne who had 7.6 km to work with. Unfortunately things start to get a little blurry about here. It’s that physiology of the runner thing that I was harping on about earlier. You see prior to a race I like a brief nap to freshen up. As a consequence while Ben was laying his guts on the course for the team I wasn’t really paying attention. As I recall Ben ran 27:14 for his leg and passed on to Sam Murphy who had 7.5 km to race. This he knocked out in 28:33 and he must have passed the women’s team (bit hazy, I was warming up at the time) prior to passing the baton over to the author. Sorry about that guys, but I’m sure you will both be delighted to know that events are crystal clear from here on in.
The author had been given the 8th and final leg, the glory leg, which as events transpired was how it turned out. The reader will note my dilemma here; how does one describe one’s performance without giving the appearance of being a tad self-centred. So please excuse me while I indulge in some blatant self-promotion. Ran 9.4 km in 28:12, which was a lap record by 5 seconds, on route passed the B team runner and moved team into first place on the road.
It now just leaves me to note that our overall time was 3:43:44, which placed us first overall and gave us line honours. It also meant that we completed a clean sweep of Otago University in the University Challenge. I do recall a fairly impressive afternoon tea, a few drinks, a computer glitch which prevented the awarding of any relay trophies and Otago University presenting us with the Shield.
There was also a car ride home, but the author must stop reporting now for it was at this point of the day that he drifted off to never-never land.
CAMP Motley REPORT –
WEEKEND OF 23-26 JUNE 2006
On the weekend of 23-26 June 2006, a number of Canterbury based athletes attended a training camp organised by Craig Motley. The venue was Hanmer Springs and trepidation was high not only due to the high mileage that was going to be pounded on the weekend but due to the freezing cold weather that had occurred in the past week. Snow had been expected on the night before but unfortunately did not eventuate. This meant no one was hearty enough to cycle but there was still an expectation that there would be a lot of snow on the ground.
Attendance was strong with those present being: Matt Ingram, Dave Catherwood, Rowan Hooper, Dave King, James Appleby, Rosa Scott Rob Creasy, Warwick Creasy and Richard Swan. Also present was coach Craig Motley, his wife Gaela and their two children.
The organisation of the weekend was nothing short of superb. A house had been booked on the out-skirts of Hanmer and there was suitably mountains of food for everyone to consume. Even the Creasy brothers with their massive eating capabilities were well catered for.
An advance party of Rowan, Matt and Dave King went up on the Friday afternoon and completed an easy 60 minute run. The rest of the attendees drove up on the Friday evening.
The opening session of the weekend was a planned hill work session up Jacks Pass. After a warm up run and various drill work, the main session commenced completing 6 by 5 minute hill reps with a two minute jog down in between. Conditions were slightly frosty but not outrageously cold. For the late arrivals, sunlight revealed that the roads had been graded and there wasn’t that much surface snow on the roads. However as we looked up towards Jacks Pass there was certainly a lot of snow up the hills.
As the session continued, the roads, where fresh snow had fallen over night progressively became icier until the upper reaches and there was a reasonable amount of snow on the ground. While there were unconfirmed sightings of yetis and other artic wildlife, a pretty hard session was able to be completed. The run down the hill back to the accommodation took about 40 minutes which reflected the altitude gain and the intensity of the work out. Morale remained high.
A massive continental breakfast was destroyed by the athletes who took shelter by the fire and then lunch was consumed before the afternoon club run. This involved an hour run from UC Club President Dan Reese’s Hanmer house followed by afternoon tea. As the run was completed on a narrower forest track, there was significantly far more snow which soon tested the enthusiasm of everyone, particularly ‘The Wood’ as our feet started to get soaked by the snow and mud. As the sun was starting to go down, people were starting to get progressively cold, however spirits soon lifted with the afternoon tea. Bottles of champagne were suggested to celebrate the University’s club win in the team section at the National Half Marathon Champs but it was decided to limit the celebrations to consumption of food. Everyone soon waddled home soon afterwards.
Saturday night was spent eating further food and having another couple of meetings to discuss goals and up coming events. It was certainly rewarding to hear what other people had planned for the remainder of the season and the approaching year and the role that each and everyone could play in people obtaining their respective goals.
It was fair to say that Sunday morning involved an extremely cold frost (minus 6!). People were generally pretty sore after the Saturday sessions so in parts morale was not that great. We set off about 8.00 and eventually people started to warm up. Once we proceeded back through Hanmer and started to get back into the forest, there was still a significant amount of snow on the ground yet the roads had been graded. At one point, Matt Ingram suggested that it was fantastic to be alive and be out running, however the same degree of enthusiasm was not reflected in the pack. “The Wood” later said he felt like viciously assaulting Ingram, such was his lack of enthusiasm.
The intention was to run up Jollies Pass however that was covered under a significant amount of snow and as some attendees had stated that they had seen enough snow to last a lifetime from the Saturday afternoon run, it was decided to head back to Jacks Pass Road. By this stage, numbers were starting to drop off but progress was made about half way up Jacks Pass before Warwick, Richard and Dave Catherwood dropped out. A rejuvenated Dave King and Matt continued up the hill and managed to get to the top where there was still significant snow falls on the ground. Dave C, Richard and Warwick waddled back home and were relieved to return to the fire. At this stage Rowan’s foot had swollen up to about twice the usual size and he decided as a precaution to not complete the Sunday run. Fortunately there was no repeat of 2005, where “The Wood” took a wrong turn leading to an epic 3 hour 7 minute run!
Despite having gone all the way to a thermal bath resort, the baths were not visited. Instead everyone packed up, tidied up the house and went off into town to watch a lacklustre All Black game. Soon afterwards everyone went off back into Christchurch. In the car back, Richard, Warwick and Rob discussed the temptation to complete the planned Sunday afternoon run but only Richard completed this.
The final session was the “Motley Special” on Monday night at Hagley Park. This consisted of 6 by 800s on 3 ½ minutes with the back markers dropping out on the 4th and 5th reps to add to the intensity. A hard but worthwhile session was then completed with Gus Taylor joining us for the session.
All in all a very rewarding and productive weekend away from Christchurch. While the snow provided challenges in part and its novelty value soon wore off, it was still good to get out into the hills and into the forest. Certainly it was pleasing that the camp could go ahead after some questions marks were raised in light of the weather. Hopefully more numbers will be attracted for a planned summer camp in November and again in May/June next year.
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