Cargill Crushed again
The infamous Crush the Cargill kicked off Saturday 12th December at 10am with 86 humans and 7 doggos embarking on the trail with 24 hours to get as many laps under their belts as possible. For those who aren’t familiar Crush the Cargill is a 24 hour race that sees participants running, or walking, up and down the mountain as many times as they can. Mount Cargill, also known as Kapukataumahaka, is a volcanic outcrop and has an elevation of 680m, A singular lap of this race is 8.5km, starting at Bethunes Gully and stretching to the summit and back down again.
Now many of you may be thinking why on earth do they do this? Well the race is a fundraising event, it’s a koha to sign up and there’s also a give a little page set till the 31st of December for further donations. All proceeds raised get donated to The Valley Project and are directed towards initiatives supporting mental health and well-being in our community. The event is about getting people together and reconnecting with our wider environment, its community focused and being in attendance you really get that feel, everyone comes together in support of the runners, those serious and those just in it for laughs, it really is just something else!
There’s always an extremely dedicated crew who compete in this race on the regular and strive to crush their previous attempts. This year Chris Bisley set out to squash his previous record of 17 laps, and he most certainly did! He didn’t quite get the 19 laps he so desired, but the 18 laps he did complete is nothing to be scoffed at. Chris ran a total of 153km, or about 90,000 times the height of Napoleon. He did this in 24 hours I don’t know about you, but I would have collapsed after the first lap. Chris took out first place and got to take home the coveted trophy, sardonically named ‘The Twig’. The trophy has never been given to the winner, its supposed to be kept for the first person who achieves 24 laps, but Steve Tripp says “We decided to lend it out to the overall winner. Mainly so I don’t have to store it in the tool shed, and because we forgot to get anything else.”
The first women, Ali Barbara and Wendy Fallon completed 11 laps, that’s 93.5km or 7,000 times as tall as a Brachiosauraus. An absolutely solid effort, again I cannot stress enough the degree of dedication that goes into this race. First pooch was Scruffy, who managed to complete 6 laps, that’s 50km or 9,000 times as tall as a Giraffe.
Other notable mentions are second man Adam Carlson who completed 15 laps and apparently had the best hallucination – two brown bears mating. Third man George McNeur clocked up 14 laps, this is a new course record for the over 50’s, go George! Pascal completed the most laps (12) dressed up as Slash from Guns and Roses, Chander Harjindar Singh who completed 6 laps in gumboots, and the most consistent participant, per year of life, Skylar Braselton-Frost who by the age of 21months has competed 3 years in a row! And lets not forget Jack Ford and his chilly bin full of beer, who this year managed to get past half way.
An absolutely solid effort all round from everyone who competed, supported and cheered, and just helped in anyway. Thanks to Aerobicedge for all the photos! See you all next year!
