Hooked On Trail Running
Hooked on Trail Running
Picture this. A stressed-out American sales vice-president named Grant arrives at Auckland airport to be greeted by Kiwi guides before embarking on a trail running adventure in New Zealand.
‘Gidday Grunta,’ declares Shane Hooks (aka Hooksie), owner of the trail running tour company Running Heaven.
‘The name’s Grant,’ clarifies the American. This man is important, tired and tense. He’s from New York and he has lots of money.
‘Yeah Grunta, welcome to New Zealand.’
‘The name’s Graaant,’ he repeats. ‘Nice to see you too.’
‘Yeah Grunta. See, I know you’re Grant, but I’m Hooksie, this is Junior, and this is Virgil. Our real names are Shane, Greg and Mike but we are all known by our nicknames. That’s what blokes do down here. OK, Grunta?’
Grunta looks bemused. ‘OK,’ he says, probably wondering what on earth he has got himself into. Perhaps he’d made a gross error of judgment, embarking on this trip to the other end of the earth to take part in the first-ever Running Heaven tour. Hell, he'd never even heard of New Zealand before he decided to do this. He'd assumed - like many Americans - it was part of Australia. (That's like calling an American a Canadian, incidentally.)
‘It’s just the Kiwi way, mate,’ explains Hooksie, who owned a courier company for 11 years before selling up and starting Running Heaven in 2001. ‘Kiwi blokes nickname everyone, especially in a sporting environment.’
‘He was like, 'oh OK', but he loved it! Here was this highly stressed-out exec and he gets a bunch of new mates giving him a nickname.’
It wasn’t long before Grant became accustomed to his new handle. The friendliness and enthusiasm of Hooksie was, after all, infectious. The man was hard to dislike even though he had had the temerity to rename him on their first meeting.
Hooksie’s casual regard for a person’s name is by no means a sign he doesn’t care about his clients. Quite the opposite. The 37-year-old Auckland father of two set up Running Heaven because he is passionate about his idea, people and trail running.
‘Trail running,’ Hooksie explains, ‘is a world away from road running. A trail runner is a different breed of person to a road runner. To people like Virgil or myself, running on the road is like putting your finger down your throat.’
Virgil and Junior are employed by Hooksie to assist in giving his groups of trail runners the trip of a lifetime. The concept is relatively simple. An all-inclusive price takes the visitor on a trip to New Zealand to be guided around a selection of running trails - most of which take their breath away. Groups are small - 12 maximum.
In the US, trail running is known as trail racing. Trail racers are, Hooksie explains, like kindred brothers to NZ's trail runners. It's all about an instinctive desire to get back to nature, and it also means you have to take what nature offers as a supposed obstacle. Not for these runners, the impeccably manicured running tracks or roads - they need rocks, tree roots, streams and foliage in the face to make their journey complete.
‘We have the best trails in the world,’ says Hooksie passionately. ‘If you want to run the best in the world, you have to fly to the bottom of the earth to do it. What we’ve got down here is the Reader’s Digest version of the world. We can take runners from volcanic Rangitoto Island one day, to a rainforest the next to a mountain the next. And, as we're 100 percent passionate trail running nuts, we know most of them - even the ones around the cities.’
Hooksie's Running Heaven tours feature four-star accommodation all the way, great restaurants and travelling in comfort. His product is aimed at the upper echelon of the tourist market and most interest in this fledgling venture has come from North Americans in their late 30s to 40s. A certain level of fitness is required, and Hooksie assesses his visitors' abilities during the runs on the first few days. If they're not keeping up, they may not run the big ones - such as the fabulously beautiful but tough Routeburn Track, an alpine pass in the South Island. However, Hooksie says the tours cater for all levels of ability, and walkers are most welcome too. His first group in April included a 61-year-old former smoker of 40 years.
There are two types of tour available. The eight-day tour departs LA on a Friday night and takes in the highlights of running in the South Island. Trail runners return home the following Sunday having missed just five days of work but having experienced what Hooksie describes as ‘food for the soul’. The 13-day tour covers highlights of the North and South Island, including the Tongariro crossing, the location for numerous scenes in The Lord of the Rings.
A big part of the Running Heaven tour is the chance to socialise with Kiwis, relax and take in a bit of Kiwi culture. There's no ‘on the bus at this time, off the bus at that time mentality’ says Hooksie. On the first tour, he noticed people winding down quickly, but the Americans were astounded at the laid-back nature of the Kiwi guides, their friends and family.
‘The most important thing was the attitude of the Kiwis,’ Hooksie says. ‘On the first night we had dinner and my family came and one of the other guys family came and the Americans loved the interaction with people from New Zealand and the laid-back attitude.
‘Grunta said to me 'you’ve got too much peace of mind man'.’
Hooksie says Grunta was further astounded when Hooksie had something stolen in the course of the trip. ‘But I was more annoyed that some swine had left a tuna can on the trail. If I saw anyone drop a smidgeon of rubbish on the track I’d go berserk. Grunta couldn’t figure out how I could get more upset over someone dropping rubbish than I could about my car getting broken into. Well, big deal, the car’s insured - next question?’
If any of the group was having problems relaxing and adapting to the Kiwi lifestyle, New Zealand's most popular tourist destination Rotorua, renowned for its thermal spas, geysers and mud pools, taught them to chill out in quick-smart time. The spectacular Whirinaki (Firrar-nakki) Forest presents a 16-mile run for those who can manage it, past waterfalls and awe-inspiring native bush. On the way back runners can relax in a natural hot spa, return to the hotel for a complimentary massage and then go on to the famous Polynesian Spa for a long soak in its healing mineral waters. There are also moving performances by Maori culture groups, and the chance to catch some Rotorua nightlife - if you're still awake.
While Hooksie loves the North Island trails, he admits the South Island trails are even better.
‘The trails down the South Island like the Kepler Track [Fiordland National Park] are like running on a moss carpet. You feel your feet go down and you feel so tiny and insignificant. The Kepler would be my favourite trail in the world that's under an hour and a half, from Control Gates through to Rainbow Reach.
‘My all-time favourite is the Routeburn [Southern Alps, not far from Queenstown]. It’s hard and long but even if you’re not fit you can get across it.’
Running Heaven tourists stay in the sleepy, picturesque hamlet of Glenorchy, also a favourite of Hooksie. Nearby is an area known as Paradise, supposedly after the Paradise duck, but suffice to say it is aptly named.
And while it's Paradise for the visitors, Hooksie admits it's not far from the same for himself. It's a dream job that was a year in the planning. He's had plenty of planning experience of such things on a different scale - having been the event organiser for more than 100 triathlons around New Zealand, as well as the Taupo half-marathon. Running Heaven offers something special though, and it's something he believes can't fail to be successful given the quality of trails on offer. But he admits a lot of it isn't about running trails at all - it's about meeting people.
‘You end up just forming friendships and that's the best bit. We describe it as three Kiwi friends taking seven American friends around the country.’
Certainly the first group to go down under to Running Heaven seem to have had their dreams fulfilled and then some.
Grunta felt sufficiently chilled to state: ‘New Zealand running is probably one of the best kept secrets in the world. The tracks are phenomenal. I have run in many parts of the world and can say, unequivocally, that the New Zealand running experience provided by Running Heaven is second to none.’
Hooksie felt good at the end of the first tour too.
‘It’s a good sign when the only woman in the group is bawling her eyes out at the airport not wanting to go and the boys are all standing there with their Dirty Dogs on trying to act really staunch like they’re not crying as well. It sounds silly but it really becomes a spiritual thing.
'I’d say it's food for the soul and it restores your faith in human nature.’
If that's the case, Hooksie is certainly on the right track.
Further Information
Shane Hooks
Running Heaven
US Free Phone 1 866 214 5833
NZ Mobile +64 21 939 519
Email shane@runningheaven.com
These topics may also be of interest to you
|
