In it for the long run
DURING one of the toughest 100-mile races in the world Gisborne’s Gavin Murphy overcomes fatigue and pain most of us couldn’t imagine. He runs or walks continuously and sees two sunrises without sleep. What on earth drives a man to move for two days non-stop, and can there really be any enjoyment?
SPOT 44-year-old Gavin Murphy jogging down Wainui Beach and you might not give him a second glance. But consider he’s probably been running since 3am and suddenly you realise this easy-going bespectacled Gisborne business manager is a running extremist.
He’s that breed of athlete that relishes the feel of shredded legs and miles of agony, and embraces the rush of runs that last for hours, even days.
Last month [March 2017] Gavin had a crack at the Northburn 100 that pits athletes against 161 kilometres (100 miles) of barren Central Otago terrain including 10,000 metres of up and down. Read the full feature.
That's like climbing Mt Everest and then a bit more. It’s like setting off for a jog from Gisborne and not stopping until you get to Te Araroa. Or Putorino if you’re heading south.
Midlife crisis
Gavin has always had a love of the outdoors passed on to him by his parents. But by his late-30s, busy with family and work, he wasn’t tramping, skiing, fishing, diving and hunting as much as he liked, and even jogging around town caused niggly injuries. Inertia was setting in.
That was until his 40th birthday when he had an idea . . . perhaps he could try running in the wild. “I’ve always enjoyed moving fast in the New Zealand bush so I looked at trail running,” he says. “I started experimenting with it, obsessing a bit.”
Captivated, Gavin downloaded ultra-running books, studied nutrition, and took up CrossFit for strength. Trail running was good for vanity and sanity. He lost weight, loved the new “community” he was part of, and found the exercise helped untangle his brain.
Running became his happy place and as it turned out he was quite good. He had top-three placings in a few long distance races and finished well at the international and very competitive 100km Tarawera Ultramarathon.
Wife Diane Murphy could only sit back and smile. “When he hit 40 and had a midlife crisis I could see the new passion in him and what he wanted to achieve.”
And by then, what he wanted to achieve, was the Northburn 100.
Saturday 6am start
The annual Northburn 100 ultramarathon near Cromwell is a sufferfest which has been held six times in seven years. Only two-thirds of people who start have finished.
Because of its length the race begins 6am Saturday, continues through the day and night, and well into Sunday for most, Monday for some. You get 48 hours to complete it.
Athletes run and walk over a 13,500ha high country station. They traverse tussock tops, sheep trails, and scree slopes in what was designed to be one of the toughest 100-milers in the world.
During the event athletes return to the start/finish line as they complete three loops. Loops one and two are 50km, and loop three, which, includes the Loop of Despair, is 60km of hell.
Gavin ran 80-120km a week to get ready, and says training was similar to that of a marathon. Just one thing was different. . “I would do one very long run a week – anything from four to 12 hours. I tend to get reasonably absorbed in anything I do!”
Support crew
An engineering consultant by day, by night wife Diane operates a catering kitchen out of her little blue tent near the Northburn 100 start/finish line. She’s assisted by Gavin’s parents who’ve travelled from Blenheim to support their son.
Baked beans and coffee are kept warm on the camp stove and chicken soup, pie, blueberries, watermelon, and rolls are close by.
“I don’t sleep much,” says Diane, “there’s always something to do, or something going on at the main tent.” During the night she sees participants arrive on orange stretchers, and others disappear into the medical tent never to reappear.
Despite the event’s whizz-bang tracking system there’s always an element of doubt as to when Gavin will arrive.
But arrive he finally does and there’s a flurry of activity as Diane administers food, helps with a sock change and replenishes high-calorie snacks and water.
She updates him on their two school-age daughters back in Gisborne, and the progress of fellow athletes, but within a matter of minutes he’s out running again.
“I don’t normally worry about the events he does, but it’s difficult not to at Northburn as it’s such a gruelling race”.
“To be honest I worry more about him driving home after remote training runs. It’s just that I know the third and final loop of Northburn is evil.”
She’s comforted that Gavin has a pacer during the darkest hours of this last loop.
She begins the long wait for the next time she’ll see her husband.
Tough guy
Pacer Jonno Kingsford reckons Gavin is a tough bastard. The affable Napier engineer joins Gavin at the 120km mark and immediately lifts Gavin’s mood.
A pacer is another runner, not registered for the race, who accompanies a competitor for a while to keep them moving, safe, and in good
spirits.
Jonno will help with the meat grinder of a third loop that includes more night running, Mt Horn, cliffs, a water race, and a bleary second day still on the run.
Gavin has run much of the night on his own catching occasional flashes of someone’s headlamp in the valley. At 3am he veered off course accidently, and another time he and a fellow runner scoop up a woman they find sleeping on the track. “Your first rule is to make sure your fellow athletes are alright and she was slurry. The sleep monster had got her. I told her it was 3km to the next aid station and to tuck in behind us.”
Near vertical pitches
Gavin meets Jonno at the bottom of the Loop of Despair. The trail ahead is dark and strewn with rocks so Jonno takes the lead to give Gavin a break from thinking about every footfall. Gavin fixates on his mate’s grey shoes and replicates his every step.
They lean into the final summit and near-vertical pitches force them to push their knees down with their hands. It’s an eerie environment. The moon peeps out of the inky darkness and the unseen terrain offers a sense of “bigness” they feel rather than see.
Each crunchy step is a step closer to finishing but the challenges of moving for 24 hours are taking their toll. Gavin's heart rate is elevated reducing its efficiency; his body temperature has dropped and blisters form on his toes; destroyed leg muscle fibres filter into his bloodstream; his stomach rebels against the high-sugar snacks; his elbows ache from using walking poles; and his knees and glutes are screaming. Massive winds add to the challenge.
“It’s fair to say it’s a tentative period but he just gets on and does it,” says Jonno. “He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t crack. There’s none of this weaving or hallucinating. He just stays determined.”
Gavin says there’s no secret to how he continues to move . . . he simply recites a checklist. When did I last eat? When did I last drink? When did I last pee? When did I last see a marker? Push replay.
“You have to run slightly within yourself staying inside your limits. “I don’t actually put myself in a place where I can red line.”
And Gavin draws mental strength from his surrounds. “There’s a certain buzz from being on the side of a mountain at 4am trying to get something done.”
Cheek-on-cheek action
Daybreak is a magic time for an ultra runner. Something miraculous happens and after feeling rubbish for most of the night runners start to feel human again. The sun rises quickly, illuminating Lake
Dunstan and surrounding hills. Gavin gets runner’s high – that feel-good fix runners can experience near the end of hard runs – and he trusts he’s going to finish.
Gavin and Jonno pick up the pace and by midmorning they’re hauling down Mt Horn with just a “cheeky half marathon” to go.
And so it is a crushing blow that now, at the rear end of the race, it is Gavin’s rear end that is hurting.
Gavin has the not uncommon problem of chaffing, and that can spell the end of anyone’s ultra marathon attempt. The irony that out in this vast wilderness something so small and out of sight might prove his undoing isn’t lost on him. “I needed merciful relief.”
The hot cheek-on-cheek action begins to seriously take hold and the stinging is intolerable. “I’d run out of chaff cream and I’d already put up with it for 60km.”
Jonno presents a solution. “You got any ChapStick mate?” Out there in the mountains, with alpine fields filled with thyme and fast-flowing rivers below, Jonno turns away as Gavin makes multiple stick-to-cheek applications. “No person wants to see that” recalls Jonno.
In sight of the end
The slick of ChapStick does the trick and that's not the only sense of relief. Diane has tracked Gavin through the night and decides to spur him on 12km from the end -- before nipping back in time to
see him finish.
Gavin: “She came up that hill . . . it was totally unexpected”.
“Ultra-marathons are a largely selfish sport and Diane has been absolutely amazing through all of this so it was great to see her.”
The trio united and on the spur of the moment Jonno asks Diane how she feels about running the last leg. “I won’t be able to keep up with him.” “Yes you will. He’s just done 148km.”
And with that, Jonno hands Diane some running kit and dashes off. “Don’t use his ChapStick” he yells back down the track.
His spirits boosted, Gavin's stride flows smoothly and a profound feeling of wellbeing arrives.
“My high point of the entire event was running that last 12km with Di. I couldn’t do it without Di. I wouldn’t eat properly and I couldn’t train all those hours away from the family. I would struggle to be organized at aid stations. I wouldn’t actually make it to the start line without her blessing and her ability to run the entire household. She should probably put her foot down.”
Heading towards the finish line Diane actually suggests Gavin be the one to put his foot down. She tells him he’ll meet his finish time goal if he speeds up a little. Gavin obliges and gives a last push all the while thinking about when he can stop.
And so it is, that just before lunch on Sunday 19 March, Gavin Murphy arrives at the Northburn 100 finish line, 30 hours, 45 minutes and 31 seconds after he left.
He’s 19th across the line an hour ahead of the next man. The winner has been home 10 hours.
Live to run
The relief is immense and there’s hugs and kisses all round before Diane helps get his shoes off and Gavin lies down in the finisher’s tent.
He rests his feet on a chair forcing blood back to his core and for the first time in two days his legs get a reprieve.
“It’s so satisfying. You’re so relieved it’s over and just about the only good thing you can think of right then is knowing you have finished, and knowing you don’t have to run anymore. It’s feels bloody good.”
“I had my eyes closed but I knew my mum was hovering around fussing. She doesn’t overly like me doing this particular event”.
Recovery is slow and for 12 hours Diane doesn’t take her eyes off Gavin as he gets the shakes and his temperature peaks and dips.
He sleeps four hours in the tent before Diane drives him to their rented house in Cromwell.
That night the sweats continue. It’ll take a month before his body fully recovers and he’ll sleep through the night.
Happiness is...
Jonno says it’s a testament to Gavin’s grit that he’s done the event...twice.
“Distance running teaches people a lot about themselves and how to tackle tough situations. Gavin’s got that level of resolve.”
Gavin takes a simpler view. “It’s a brutal but fantastic event and I get a great sense of satisfaction.”
The desire to quit mid-race has never crept over him. “You read all the stories about hallucinations and a semi-drug effect, but the previous year I just ran it, and finished.”
“Part of the reason I went back was to see if I did end up having a bad experience. But I didn’t. It just didn’t happen. I went up that Loop of Despair twice - once in daylight and once at 4am. I think I was struggling a bit then, but that’s it. “
Gavin isn’t surprised only 57 of the 87 athletes who started this year, finished the event.
“You don’t run it, you survive it, but I believe there’s more danger sitting at a computer the rest of your life than doing what I’ve done.”
“I think human beings were born to move in big strong solid movements across the countryside. The secret to happiness is right at your feet.”
SPOT 44-year-old Gavin Murphy jogging down Wainui Beach and you might not give him a second glance. But consider he’s probably been running since 3am and suddenly you realise this easy-going bespectacled Gisborne business manager is a running extremist.
He’s that breed of athlete that relishes the feel of shredded legs and miles of agony, and embraces the rush of runs that last for hours, even days.
Last month [March 2017] Gavin had a crack at the Northburn 100 that pits athletes against 161 kilometres (100 miles) of barren Central Otago terrain including 10,000 metres of up and down. Read the full feature.
That's like climbing Mt Everest and then a bit more. It’s like setting off for a jog from Gisborne and not stopping until you get to Te Araroa. Or Putorino if you’re heading south.
Midlife crisis
Gavin has always had a love of the outdoors passed on to him by his parents. But by his late-30s, busy with family and work, he wasn’t tramping, skiing, fishing, diving and hunting as much as he liked, and even jogging around town caused niggly injuries. Inertia was setting in.
That was until his 40th birthday when he had an idea . . . perhaps he could try running in the wild. “I’ve always enjoyed moving fast in the New Zealand bush so I looked at trail running,” he says. “I started experimenting with it, obsessing a bit.”
Captivated, Gavin downloaded ultra-running books, studied nutrition, and took up CrossFit for strength. Trail running was good for vanity and sanity. He lost weight, loved the new “community” he was part of, and found the exercise helped untangle his brain.
Running became his happy place and as it turned out he was quite good. He had top-three placings in a few long distance races and finished well at the international and very competitive 100km Tarawera Ultramarathon.
Wife Diane Murphy could only sit back and smile. “When he hit 40 and had a midlife crisis I could see the new passion in him and what he wanted to achieve.”
And by then, what he wanted to achieve, was the Northburn 100.
Saturday 6am start
The annual Northburn 100 ultramarathon near Cromwell is a sufferfest which has been held six times in seven years. Only two-thirds of people who start have finished.
Because of its length the race begins 6am Saturday, continues through the day and night, and well into Sunday for most, Monday for some. You get 48 hours to complete it.
Athletes run and walk over a 13,500ha high country station. They traverse tussock tops, sheep trails, and scree slopes in what was designed to be one of the toughest 100-milers in the world.
During the event athletes return to the start/finish line as they complete three loops. Loops one and two are 50km, and loop three, which, includes the Loop of Despair, is 60km of hell.
Gavin ran 80-120km a week to get ready, and says training was similar to that of a marathon. Just one thing was different. . “I would do one very long run a week – anything from four to 12 hours. I tend to get reasonably absorbed in anything I do!”
Support crew
An engineering consultant by day, by night wife Diane operates a catering kitchen out of her little blue tent near the Northburn 100 start/finish line. She’s assisted by Gavin’s parents who’ve travelled from Blenheim to support their son.
Baked beans and coffee are kept warm on the camp stove and chicken soup, pie, blueberries, watermelon, and rolls are close by.
“I don’t sleep much,” says Diane, “there’s always something to do, or something going on at the main tent.” During the night she sees participants arrive on orange stretchers, and others disappear into the medical tent never to reappear.
Despite the event’s whizz-bang tracking system there’s always an element of doubt as to when Gavin will arrive.
But arrive he finally does and there’s a flurry of activity as Diane administers food, helps with a sock change and replenishes high-calorie snacks and water.
She updates him on their two school-age daughters back in Gisborne, and the progress of fellow athletes, but within a matter of minutes he’s out running again.
“I don’t normally worry about the events he does, but it’s difficult not to at Northburn as it’s such a gruelling race”.
“To be honest I worry more about him driving home after remote training runs. It’s just that I know the third and final loop of Northburn is evil.”
She’s comforted that Gavin has a pacer during the darkest hours of this last loop.
She begins the long wait for the next time she’ll see her husband.
Tough guy
Pacer Jonno Kingsford reckons Gavin is a tough bastard. The affable Napier engineer joins Gavin at the 120km mark and immediately lifts Gavin’s mood.
A pacer is another runner, not registered for the race, who accompanies a competitor for a while to keep them moving, safe, and in good
spirits.
Jonno will help with the meat grinder of a third loop that includes more night running, Mt Horn, cliffs, a water race, and a bleary second day still on the run.
Gavin has run much of the night on his own catching occasional flashes of someone’s headlamp in the valley. At 3am he veered off course accidently, and another time he and a fellow runner scoop up a woman they find sleeping on the track. “Your first rule is to make sure your fellow athletes are alright and she was slurry. The sleep monster had got her. I told her it was 3km to the next aid station and to tuck in behind us.”
Near vertical pitches
Gavin meets Jonno at the bottom of the Loop of Despair. The trail ahead is dark and strewn with rocks so Jonno takes the lead to give Gavin a break from thinking about every footfall. Gavin fixates on his mate’s grey shoes and replicates his every step.
They lean into the final summit and near-vertical pitches force them to push their knees down with their hands. It’s an eerie environment. The moon peeps out of the inky darkness and the unseen terrain offers a sense of “bigness” they feel rather than see.
Each crunchy step is a step closer to finishing but the challenges of moving for 24 hours are taking their toll. Gavin's heart rate is elevated reducing its efficiency; his body temperature has dropped and blisters form on his toes; destroyed leg muscle fibres filter into his bloodstream; his stomach rebels against the high-sugar snacks; his elbows ache from using walking poles; and his knees and glutes are screaming. Massive winds add to the challenge.
“It’s fair to say it’s a tentative period but he just gets on and does it,” says Jonno. “He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t crack. There’s none of this weaving or hallucinating. He just stays determined.”
Gavin says there’s no secret to how he continues to move . . . he simply recites a checklist. When did I last eat? When did I last drink? When did I last pee? When did I last see a marker? Push replay.
“You have to run slightly within yourself staying inside your limits. “I don’t actually put myself in a place where I can red line.”
And Gavin draws mental strength from his surrounds. “There’s a certain buzz from being on the side of a mountain at 4am trying to get something done.”
Cheek-on-cheek action
Daybreak is a magic time for an ultra runner. Something miraculous happens and after feeling rubbish for most of the night runners start to feel human again. The sun rises quickly, illuminating Lake
Dunstan and surrounding hills. Gavin gets runner’s high – that feel-good fix runners can experience near the end of hard runs – and he trusts he’s going to finish.
Gavin and Jonno pick up the pace and by midmorning they’re hauling down Mt Horn with just a “cheeky half marathon” to go.
And so it is a crushing blow that now, at the rear end of the race, it is Gavin’s rear end that is hurting.
Gavin has the not uncommon problem of chaffing, and that can spell the end of anyone’s ultra marathon attempt. The irony that out in this vast wilderness something so small and out of sight might prove his undoing isn’t lost on him. “I needed merciful relief.”
The hot cheek-on-cheek action begins to seriously take hold and the stinging is intolerable. “I’d run out of chaff cream and I’d already put up with it for 60km.”
Jonno presents a solution. “You got any ChapStick mate?” Out there in the mountains, with alpine fields filled with thyme and fast-flowing rivers below, Jonno turns away as Gavin makes multiple stick-to-cheek applications. “No person wants to see that” recalls Jonno.
In sight of the end
The slick of ChapStick does the trick and that's not the only sense of relief. Diane has tracked Gavin through the night and decides to spur him on 12km from the end -- before nipping back in time to
see him finish.
Gavin: “She came up that hill . . . it was totally unexpected”.
“Ultra-marathons are a largely selfish sport and Diane has been absolutely amazing through all of this so it was great to see her.”
The trio united and on the spur of the moment Jonno asks Diane how she feels about running the last leg. “I won’t be able to keep up with him.” “Yes you will. He’s just done 148km.”
And with that, Jonno hands Diane some running kit and dashes off. “Don’t use his ChapStick” he yells back down the track.
His spirits boosted, Gavin's stride flows smoothly and a profound feeling of wellbeing arrives.
“My high point of the entire event was running that last 12km with Di. I couldn’t do it without Di. I wouldn’t eat properly and I couldn’t train all those hours away from the family. I would struggle to be organized at aid stations. I wouldn’t actually make it to the start line without her blessing and her ability to run the entire household. She should probably put her foot down.”
Heading towards the finish line Diane actually suggests Gavin be the one to put his foot down. She tells him he’ll meet his finish time goal if he speeds up a little. Gavin obliges and gives a last push all the while thinking about when he can stop.
And so it is, that just before lunch on Sunday 19 March, Gavin Murphy arrives at the Northburn 100 finish line, 30 hours, 45 minutes and 31 seconds after he left.
He’s 19th across the line an hour ahead of the next man. The winner has been home 10 hours.
Live to run
The relief is immense and there’s hugs and kisses all round before Diane helps get his shoes off and Gavin lies down in the finisher’s tent.
He rests his feet on a chair forcing blood back to his core and for the first time in two days his legs get a reprieve.
“It’s so satisfying. You’re so relieved it’s over and just about the only good thing you can think of right then is knowing you have finished, and knowing you don’t have to run anymore. It’s feels bloody good.”
“I had my eyes closed but I knew my mum was hovering around fussing. She doesn’t overly like me doing this particular event”.
Recovery is slow and for 12 hours Diane doesn’t take her eyes off Gavin as he gets the shakes and his temperature peaks and dips.
He sleeps four hours in the tent before Diane drives him to their rented house in Cromwell.
That night the sweats continue. It’ll take a month before his body fully recovers and he’ll sleep through the night.
Happiness is...
Jonno says it’s a testament to Gavin’s grit that he’s done the event...twice.
“Distance running teaches people a lot about themselves and how to tackle tough situations. Gavin’s got that level of resolve.”
Gavin takes a simpler view. “It’s a brutal but fantastic event and I get a great sense of satisfaction.”
The desire to quit mid-race has never crept over him. “You read all the stories about hallucinations and a semi-drug effect, but the previous year I just ran it, and finished.”
“Part of the reason I went back was to see if I did end up having a bad experience. But I didn’t. It just didn’t happen. I went up that Loop of Despair twice - once in daylight and once at 4am. I think I was struggling a bit then, but that’s it. “
Gavin isn’t surprised only 57 of the 87 athletes who started this year, finished the event.
“You don’t run it, you survive it, but I believe there’s more danger sitting at a computer the rest of your life than doing what I’ve done.”
“I think human beings were born to move in big strong solid movements across the countryside. The secret to happiness is right at your feet.”
