Campbell Furlong shares his experience taking part in the Raglan Karioi Trail.
My first win, ever!
It was December 2016 and my mate Mark and I had just run The Goat around the western side of Mount Ruapehu. We had this crazy idea to run The Goat one Saturday and see if we could then run Karioi the next. We decided to wait until the Friday to register just in case we were still feeling the side effects of our adventure on National Park. On Friday night after a quick catchup, and both feeling confident about our recovery, I jumped online and registered us for the Raglan Karioi Trail. It would be a first for both of us.
Saturday morning saw us out on the end of Karioi Road ready with the mad mob to climb the Maunga, twice. It was wet and there would be no views of Kawhia, Aotea or Raglan Harbours today.
I plodded alongside my best mate up through the farm, and by the bush line he was feeling the effect of last week. I said goodbye and set off on the steep climb to the summit, cruised around the crater rim, and scrambled down to Te Toto Gorge. I was feeling great so stretched out along the gravel road, before taking that mean detour back up the hill and through the forest before dropping back down onto the road again.
Taking the right hand turn from Whale Bay and heading up through the Institute of Awesome I caught up with another local mate, Marty, who informed me the toughest climb of the day was just ahead. He was right, as the climb from Whale Bay up to the lookout seems to go on forever and several times fools you into thinking you’ve arrived.
After the lookout I retraced the earlier mountain top trail to the summit and then felt renewed energy as I headed down through the bush to the farm where I felt like I could push on hard to the end. I did just that and couldn’t believe what I heard as I crossed the finish line, “And here is Campbell Forlong, coming in first in his age group”.
I had never won a race in my life. I’m a middle of the pack guy, and once even came dead last in the 1500m Waikato High School Zones. But today I was a winner.
As I looked around I started to notice several other guys around my age already relaxing and enjoying the after race beer. That was weird, if I was first. I went to the race results tent and had a look at the newly printed out sheet on the board. Yep, there it was, my name and time, and first place … in the 50+ women’s age group! This bloke was the first woman to cross the line in the 50+.
Rather embarrassed with my over enthusiastic response to a win, that was not quite right, I informed the official that they might need to change my gender before prizegiving. It seems that in my excitement late on Friday night I had pushed a wrong button while registering online . The adjusted results were soon printed and as usual there I was, right in the middle of my age group where I seem to belong.
The rest of the day was time to relax, the sun came out, the beer and bangers made for great tucker, and many good laughs were shared with fellow competitors. It was a long wait for Mark who came in about 4 hours later at the tail end. He’d made it, but vowed never to return! But I would be back, in the middle of the pack!
Raglan Karioi Trail 2023 Mountain Run
Saturday 9 December
This is the 10 year anniversary.
It will be a big one!
Resgister: raglankarioitrail.co.nz
