Who am I?

I am Paul Altena, in my mid 50’s, youngest of eight, happily married father of three, a Christian, and a nurse from Auckland, New Zealand. One line summary of a life.

My Running History

I was in the school cross country running team at age 11 and 12 but have never really been into running much. In my late teens to thirties I was into white water kayaking, caving and aerobics mostly, fit but nothing serious. In 2015 my beautiful wife introduced me to Zombies Run, an adventure based running app that plays the story of a zombie apocalypse where you are the main character, sent on running missions. Apart from the story, the addicting thing was collecting resources to build a little town. I had to complete everything! This led to my first Marathon in 2016 but didn’t like road / footpath running much. After this my Ironman sister put a like on a trail ultramarathon 80km by a local company called Lactic Turkey. I thought this was crazy and scary so had signed up within a day and joined a social trail running club called The Runnns. I completed the Gazuntite 80km ultramatathon in 2018 after which a fall, knee injury and operation put me off running for a bit until I saw a Jez Bragg video on you tube about running the Te Araroa trail, New Zealand’s 3000km thru hike.

I thought who would be mad enough to do that! The question plagued me until the answer became “me!” because I couldn’t get it out of my head. There was also no Te Araroa record in the “self supported” category so I was a sure in. Talking to mum she mentioned dad had wanted to do the Te Araroa but never could which then set my heart on doing a lap for him also. I am not a super athlete but huge on stubbornness and effort so I hired James Keugler as a coach and in 2022 started my first attempt at the double Te Araroa. I had never done any “fast packing” before, other than my practice days.

Te Araroa Attempt 1

This was thirteen weeks of the most pain and fatigue I have ever experienced! After 3815km you would think I would have learned that a 5 meter fall down a bank and summersault to a stream bed was bad. Thankfully my head broke my fall so no major damage. Happily, the sore swollen left ankle, inability to lift my left arm and breathing pain did mean I got to go home early and leave someone else to do the first double Te Araroa. Quite a practice though. I had started on November 14th 2022 from Auckland, making the 620km trek to Cape Reianga lighthouse by 27th November.

My feet had swollen to the point of splitting my shoes and causing such severe blistering I had to stop at Kaitia Hospital. All my pre purchased Hoka shoes had to be replaced. I tried to scrimp and make them last too long so I always had blisters which even extended to the arches of my feet. I also lost all my toenails at least once each. The incredible thing was that there was always so much wrong that I couldn’t carry on in my own strength but so many coincidences and blessings along the way I knew I couldn’t stop! The generosity of Trail angles, encouragement of other Trail users, coincidences of timings and weather proved time and time again I was meant to be out there. Stopping was never going to happen until it was forced but again, coincidentally catching the last pre cyclone flight. Another coincidence was another runner, Tim Wright, was setting a record for a single length two months ahead of me! His time spurred me on to do more than I thought possible. In the last few days before the trail end at Bluff, I calculated I could not have matched him as I was about 24 hours behind, I slowed a little and finished my first lap what I thought was 25 hours, 33 minutes behind but in fact is only 93 minutes slower.