Day 44: The assault on Mount Putauaki
20 March 2015
TRAINING RUN: Whakatane runners Dianne Bulled, Glynn Hay, Sean Martin and Pete Marshall at the summit of Mount Putauaki after a training run. Photo supplied
BEFORE she has even completed her assault on Mount Putauaki, Dianne Bulled is seeing the benefits of the High five 0 challenge.
Last year Wanaka man Malcolm Law set himself a challenge to run 50 marathons and 50 mountains in 50 days to raise $250,000 for the Mental Health Foundation.
The challenge kicked off on February 7 and Mr Law will complete it on March 28, on Rangitoto Island.
Each day he is joined by a group of different support runners, who must raise at least $400 to participate.
This Sunday Mr Law will ascend Mt Putauaki and he will be joined by Mrs Bulled and three other Whakatane runners: Pete Marshall, Phillip Bisley-McIlroy and Sean Martin.
The group will also be joined on the day by Tim Day from Rotorua, Auckland’s Robert Tighe and Queenstown couple Alex Martin and Paul Wooler.
They will start from Lake Okataina, run to Tarawera Falls, along forestry roads to Kawerau, then up and down Mt Putauaki.
And while there are still a few days to go before they start their run, Mrs Bulled said she was already seeing the benefits from participating in the challenge.
“During this challenge, not only has it brought many people together for a common cause, it has brought the subject of mental health issues out into the open. People are talking about their experiences, and this is helping others who are going through mental health issues.
“They find out others have been through similar issues and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Mrs Bulled said she had been inspired to join the challenge because she wanted to help those who worked in the mental health area.
“The Mental Health Foundation works with the goal of making mental health everybody’s business. They are here, not so much to pick up the pieces when things go wrong, but to help prevent things going wrong in the first place.”
Mrs Bulled said training for the run had been going well and she took inspiration from Mr Law’s journey so far.
“Mal has been challenged physically along the way in this journey – with a chest infection early on, and a knee injury. Despite this, and the sad loss of a friend and fellow support runner to a helicopter crash, he has kept on running and reaching his peaks every day.”
Mrs Bulled said while the aim was to raise at least $250,000, participants in the High Five 0 challenge had so far collected $394,569 in donations.
She said people could still continue to donate.
“As well as training hard, we have all been raising money to reach our goals. This Friday we are planning a movie night featuring, of course, a running movie, at the Harrier Clubrooms at 7pm, with a donation to the Mental Health Foundation for entry.
“The High Five O website is www.high50.org.nz and we all have our own fundraising pages on fundraiseonline. People are also able to donate by texting ‘gomal’ to 2446 – to donate $3 to the Mental Health Foundation.”
Source: Whakatane Beacon