Chafing the Dream NZ

Haere mai welcome to a special episode with Mal, no Dwayne because he doesn't have a vagina. Mal sits down with her running kiwi mama friend, Helen. Helen Newson is a 24-hour National NZ Champs, founder of His & Hers Events which runs Kings Backyard Ultra and Northland 100, Chris and Helen have recently opened their very own specialty running and outdoor store called The Hut HQ in Whangarei. Mal and Helen discuss some real talk conversation around pregnancy and running, my experience of 1st versus 2nd pregnancy running journey, postpartum running and journey, the shock of newborn life, recovering, breastfeeding, shatting blood, the 6-week post partum return is complete bullsheeeeeet and what it really can look like. I can't help myself but bring up my usual ranty topics about bone health pre and post pregnancy, breastfeeding amennorhea, and RED-S. WARNING: This episode could be triggering to some because we do dive into either pre or postnatal depression. We have a giveaway of hot pink buff socks. If you made it this far and you are a female and want some hot pink socks be the first to leave a comment titling "I LOVE BUFF SOCKS!"

Kia ora haere mai Welcome to a fun jam packed episode. Dwayne and Mal do the usual unpacking training updates. Mal shares her usual weight lifting program that she has been very consistent at and her slow mileage uptick. Dwayne talks about his longest run so far for the the 100k Taupo training, a 50k out to Glenbervie and back. Mal and Dwayne go on a tangent about mixing electrolytes and water, Dwayne becomes a scientist discussing this and Mal gets lost in the weeds. We discuss the upcoming local Whangarei Half Marathon race this Sunday. We then have a slight cameo with our daughter Poppy and end up recording the rest of the episode the next evening. We start off talking about Ali Anderson running a sub 3-hour marathon 32 weeks pregnant. Which is wild and impressive! There is an upcoming mile series starting 7th October for a 5-week series. It will be held at the Trigg Stadium, Park Avenue in Whangarei. The only track in Whangarei! This mile series is going to be so fun. We are excited to be apart of this. Mal can’t wait to see what she can rip on the track being hapu. It is a great open event that is inclusive and for truly anyone that wants to test themselves and their speed. The Kea series is a 8 mountain and iconic races held across New Zealand. Here is the schedule for Kea Series Season 2 and link to the announcement https://kearun.nz/2026/09/06/summer-of-epic-nz-trail-events-headline-kea-series-2/: Toi’s Challenge – Whakatane Sunday 15th November 2026 Kinisi Rise and Shine Treble Cone – Wanaka Saturday 16th January 2027 The Goat – Ohakune Saturday 23rd January 2027 Xterra Wellington (including NZ Short Trail Champs) – Saturday 27th February 2027 Motatapu UDC Finance Miner’s Trail – Arrowtown Saturday 6th March 2027 3 Peaks – Dunedin Sunday 14th March 2027 Mauao King and Queen of The Mountain – Mount Maunganui Saturday 24th April Nelson Mountain Running Festival (incl. NZ Mountain Running Champs [Uphill]) – Uphill Only on Saturday 8th and Classic on Sunday 9th of May 2027 Keep chafing your dreams. Thank you all you loyal listeners <3 Mal and Dwayne

Kia ora Mal has made it back to kiwi land cleared. Dwayne and Mal open this episode discussing their training and briefly talking about the difference of temperature and RAIN. Dwayne admits he was not able to race Kaitaia because of some serious jet lag. We talk about the race results from Kaitaia, Whangarei Half race previewing-ish, and UTMB reactions. We also do a quick shout out to the Hut HQ that has recently opened in Whangarei. Thanks for all your support. Mal and Dwayne

Kia ora haere mai Welcome to an episode that is state side. Mal and Dwayne sit down and rehash the visa status. We do the usual training update. Dwayne being 8 weeks out from Taupo 100k. His insights and struggles with the heat of the Summer in America compared to leaving Whangarei when it was 0 degrees the day he left for America. He brings up the jet lag and struggle bus he was on for his planned 45k that turned into a 25k. Mal’s training update discusses Dr.Stephanie Mundt lifting programme for her. The programme focusing on bone strengthening exercises specifically with heavier back squats, deadlifts, and a mix of plyometrics. Mal had difficulty running for a few weeks because of the Spokane Fire evacuations and poor air quality. We dig into OCC, CCC, and UTMB talking about our favourites and predicted finishes. We discuss the excitement it will be to cheer on our local favourite, Sam Rout. We can’t wait to have him on again and discuss his experiences in Chamonix. You get to hear our predicted picks. We close talking about the Spokane Fires and what it’s like for Dwayne to experience American culture. Dwayne describing the Washington State trails. Mal brings up the struggles of going through National Guard and the different times of evacuating. Don’t forget about the Watch Party for Sam Rout at the The Hut HQ in Whangarei starting at ____pm. This is located at _______. We look forward to having our next episode be in Kiwi Land. Keep chafing your dreams. Mal and Dwayne

Welcome back to Chafing the Dream. This week Dwayne sits down with Ian Kleingeld. Ian recently ran his first 100 miler at this years Northland 100. I ask him what got him into running. How he trained for the Northland 100 Miler. And what it took to complete the four 41km laps in the Glenbervie forest. Keep chafing your dreeeeaaaammmz

This week Dwayne talks to Sam about his upcoming travel to Europe to compete in OCC in france. OCC is held by UTMB and is their 60km event. Featuring trail runners from all round the world looking to compete against the best of the best. I ask Sam about his most recent race at UTA50 and how his recovery from a rolled ankle has been going after a nasty sprain leading into UTA. How his training has been going for OCC and how he has tailored his training for a race with 3500m of vertical gain, and the difficulty of training for a race on terrain that you have not been able to run on. Mal gives us a quick update on her visa situation and on the wild fires that have been Devastating spokane last week. Keep chafing your dreaamzz

Welcome to one year of Chafing the Dream. This week's episode is a treat, as we get a chance to sit and talk with Bradley from TRNZ. Bradley is the visionary behind the TRNZ newsletter and website, Mountain Skag merchandise. Not to mention the psychopath that concocted the VERTual July challenge. Enjoy this extra long episode that dives into Bradleys beginnings as a trail runner. The state of trail running in NZ. And much much more. Keep chafing those dreams.

It's episode 51, and we take the mics out to our local ultra marathon that is the Northland100 in the mighty Glenbervie Forest to capture some finish line feels from a few of the top finishers. These include: Leonard Terry, 57km winner Simon Buswell, 2nd in the 57km Katie White, 57km winner Kate Lewis, 82km winner Trey Subritzky, 2nd in the 105km Hannah Presswood, 105km winner Big thanks to all those who gave their time to share their thoughts on the race and their experience there. Lastly we finish with adding some details to the drama that unfolded in our family last week when we learned Mal had been issued a visa we did not know about on our last return from the USA back in January and how it's going to affect her time away. Basically it's going to allow Dwayne a big chuck of time to train for Taupo Ultra ;) Thanks for joining us on this wild ride.

Kia ora and welcome to episode 50! Wowza. Apologies for the coughing and the sick sounding humans.... but we made it through this one. We start by bringing up Dwayne no longer competing in the VERT challenge due to a back injury. He survived the 14 days which meant 1400m. There are still plenty of days left in July for The VERT to challenge some poor souls of New Zealand. At this point there is about 20ish contenders. We mention our two locals, Patrick Kalin and Kirsty Hamlin. Check out the final contenders here , if the link doesnt work go to TrailRunningNZ and follow along. Dwayne and Mal recorded less than a week before the Northland 100 event. This local event is held by His & Hers in the Glenbervie Forest. Dwayne and Mal will plan to be there supporting and possibly sneaking the mic in a couple peoples faces if they are up for it (or if we are better by then!!!). For the Northland 100 we discuss the upcoming participants: https://my.raceresult.com/405868/ . Check them out on the link! The code for the Kaitai trail run for 20% off is CHAFINGTHEDREAM. Congratulations to our winners, Jonny Martin and Ian Kleingeld for winning free entries to this beautiful race in Kaitai Forest. Appreciate all our listeners. Keep an eye out for our upcoming event on 22nd August, Chafing the Coins. There will be some great prizes for this event! Keep chafing your dreamzzzzzzzz

Haere mai Welcome to a fun episode with our close friend, Hannah Thompson. We start our episode talking about Dwayne's VERT challenge thus far and a special voice recording from TrailRunningNZ, Bradley Houghton. THEN. We talk Mal's favourite subject... marathon training and race day! Hannah was on Episode 11| Running with Type 1 Diabetes of this podcast where she gives details of what it is like to train with Type 1 Diabetes. This episode is focusing more on her 20-week build up to Gold Coast Marathon, why she chose Gold Coast Marathon and training after Hyrox Competition, her strength training sessions, race day, and interesting stories of running with a 3:30 pace group plus stabbing herself twice with injections. Hannah is inspiring and we are very very lucky to have her on and hear the debrief of her training. Thanks for the listen's y'all. We look forward to hearing your comments below on the gram, Spotify or via email at chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com Keep chafing your dreamzzzzz

Kia ora Welcome to another kiwi-americas running duo episode with Mal and Dwayne. Mal and Dwayne bring on the usual Kiwi and Americana banter, especially with the recent 4th of July celebration. We talk through the usual trading updates which transitions nicely into Dwayne updating folks on the VERT Challenge. We discuss his game plan and how he is coping currently with the climbing. So far, so good! Dwayne sneaks in a short guest segment with Matt and Pat doing the Vert Challenge. Gosh they are a hoot. As of day 7 with 700m completed they are all remaining in the challenge. Mal talks about her training and transitions into her recent Physiotherapy Appointment with Dr.Stephanie Mundt. Dr. Mundt provides Mal with clear strength training programme and a return to run. Both Mal and Dwayne reflect on how/why there have been so many bone stress injuries based off of what Dr.Mundt findings were. We also correct ourselves from the previous episode regarding the times for the Northland 100 race start times. Thanks for your loyalty. We love y'all. Keep chafing your dreamzzzz

Welcome to episode 47 This week Mal starts off with talking some of her specialty as a speech language therapist you'll hear some swallowing jargon. We talk some of our thoughts about WSER 100 miler which took place over the weekend been. We break down the Northland100 course, where the aid stations will be plus some tips on the terrain and what to expect out there. Mal asks Dwayne his thoughts on the upcoming Vert-July challenge, where is he going to go to get the vert he needs, how long will he last? We hope you enjoy listening along. We appreciate you all.

Haere mai- plenty of links to click on in the Spotify Shownotes so go to candy town. Welcome to a jam-packed episode of local events and challenges. We start with our thoughts and the upcoming speaker, Bruce Fordyce regarding Comrades Ultramarathon. The world's oldest and longest ultramarathon. Next year will be there 100th year! Come check out Bruce's talk hosted by Masters on the Move. It is on 14th August at 6pm in Tikipunga Sports Park. Sign up here . Next we talk about our training updates. The usual saga's of the duo. We move into the VERT JULY . This is hosted by TrailRunningNZ . Super cool event. Every day for the month of July you run 100m vert per day adding each day with another 100m. So 2nd July = 200m, 3rd July -300m and so forth. For our RUN THE FOREST giveaway tickets we have tied it into the VERT JULY. We want you, our listeners, to guess how many days Dwayne will last on the Vert July. The two closest winners will get free tickets from SportNorthland to choose any distance from Run the Forest. For the giveaway send us via email ( chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com) your name and number of days you are guessing Dwayne will win. (e.g., Mallory, 3 days for Dwayne). Good luck guessers! We talk about Denika Clooney smashing our New Zealand races and her recent signing with Elon University. A speedy kiwi gal indeed. We close talking about our upcoming event = Chasing the Coins . Details listed below: Date: 22nd August Time: Debriefing at 1:45PM, race starts at 2 PM Location: Clock Museum, Whangarei Town Basin Teams and format: Each team will have 4 runners, you must have two women and two men. The teams will race to 6 locations around Whangarei. At debriefing you will be given a map and the 6 coin locations. You can divide and conquer however you like. For example, one runner can collect 2 coins from 2 different locations. Once your team has returned all 7 coins to Mal and Dwayne you have completed the event!! Yay! How to Register: Send your team name, team member’s names, contact details (name + phone numbers) to chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com Prizes: We will have plenty of exciting local prizes and runner related goodies up for grabs… like free burgers from BurgerFuel!! Who doesn’t love the Bastard. Why we created it: We created this event because we love the idea of a fun competition with teams that brings people together. But you don’t have to be the fastest team to win prizes. We look forward to bringing all you chafers together.

Kia ora You read that right. Mal has been knocked up with round #2. Dwayne's newest training partner, baby #2 will be arriving in December 2026. Mal asks Dwayne questions of how he feels when he found out we were pregnant, what has surprised him the most this pregnancy, if there are any goals before baby comes (hint hint Mal tries to convince him to do a 100k....we will see). We make a laugh out of a few topics and are excited to have Mal give better training updates. Come along for the usual banter and laughter. We seriously love all our listeners and all the comments we get. Any mailbag questions or comments send to our email at chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com and/or send us a DM on our instagram .

Kia ora What an episode. Dwayne and Mal were two lucky dogs to sit alongside the Dark Horse, Mr. Alex Nicholson. The Local Legend of the Backyard Kings Ultra 2026 in Whangarei ,NZ running 38 laps. He was a hoot. We spent time talking about his upbringing and why he leaned into running in his later years. Turns out it was often peer pressure by his friends. So if you are training for a marathon or an ultra alone, just don't. Ask your friend who has never done one! His stories were a crack up and he is the most genuine person. We loved hearing about how firefighting has impacted his running career. We truly had lots of laughs and inspiring moments talking to him about the Kings Backyard Ultra experience. We can't wait to see how Alex does at the Northland 100. We also close our episode talking about TrailRunningNZ Vert Challenge in July. This challenge is wild. Every day in July you run more and more vert. So for the first week your first day is 100m vert, Tuesday is 200m vert, Wednesday 300m vert, and so on. By the first week you would have ran 2,800meters. Each day in the month of July you keep adding 100m. Basically.... read Bradleys email but you know you are going to get sweet prizes even if you just participate in it! Give him a follow on the gram . Keep chafing your dream. Byyyyyye

Kia ora Welcome to another Chafing the Dream episode where plenty of chafing happened this weekend at the Kings Backyard Ultra. There was New Zealand records broken at the 24 hour mark with the most runners still standing at 16! There were also 3 newbies still standing at that 24 hour mark. The last man standing was the previous 2024 winner Anthony Kerr-Taylor and the last female standing was the ultra a day Shannon Leigh-Litt. We couldn't help but share some our favourite stories like Roberta representing Lithuania for her satellite team, Alex Nicholson our favourite local firefighter, and Emma's heart breaking DSQ. Mal was lucky enough to be on the mic most of Sunday, after the 100-miles or 24 hour/lap mark. She was able to see and get emotional with the stories runners shared. Dwayne and Mal discussed the winners of Kings, the rationale behind the disqualifiers and the weather. Because running races can never not bring up the weather. We also did a brief run down of our training, lactate threshold testing, and our upcoming event. Thanks as always for the listen. Keep chafing your dreams. Byyyyyyyyyeeeee

This week Mal and Dwayne talk the usual training updates, and Dwayne probs Mal about her constant injuries. Then they talk about this weekends big event for Whangarei, the Kings Backyard Ultra at Barge Park. Finally we hear from the event organisers Chris and Helen of His and Hers and they answer some questions about the Kings backyard ultra. You can follow us on instagram @chafingthedreamnz or you can email us at chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com

Kia ora and Haere Mai Another episode of Chafing the Dream. This one was fun as we answered some mailbag questions. Man do we love answering them, so please keep them coming. Even if it isn't a question and more of a comment. We updated folks on Mallory and Dwayne's training. As usual Mal sookes in her lack of training but teases hopeful promising future plans and lands. Meanwhile, Dwayne contemplates his upcoming training block for Northland 100. We get into answering mailbag questions related to Dwayne chasing more ultras, Rachel Entrains performance running and out right winning a 250-miler with her changes in carbs and fatigue-resistance animal, we talk about kauri dieback disease and that we believe us (as runners or walkers) could do better for our Kauri Groves, a question on running but not training for anything in particular, Imodium aka loperamide and studies showing 2-4 mg (not GRAMS) can suggest lower GI issues however THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE, and finally closing with estimated race times Dwayne could have ran if he chose a flat and fast marathon course instead of a Trail Run the Bays Marathon. We briefly tease our upcoming event the end of August. We already have some sponsors and volunteers. Can't wait to see how competes in teams for this one!! Keep chafing your dreams y'all.

Kia ora On this weeks episode Mal asks Dwayne how his trail marathon at Run the Bay in Paihia went. They dive into the course, the race plan, and how it all played out. Sneak peak, he won and Mal was very proud. Poor Dwayne was still experiencing some mild brain fatigue post marathon haze. Next up Mal gives a quick update on what she's been learning from Marci Klimek and Renee her physiotherapist about bone stress injuries and recovery. We discuss exercises to do to promote strong healthy bones. Mal's GOALS in life. Lastly we tease our upcoming event in August, details of how it will run and what you'll need to assemble as a team to participate. More info to come. Send us questions to our instagram: @chafingthedreamnz Or email us at chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com

Kia ora Welcome to another episode of Chafing the Dream with Mal and Dwayne the American Kiwi Running Duo. This episode Dwayne and Mal do the usual update of training. More specifically Dwayne stacking some k's before his Run the Bay Marathon this upcoming weekend. Meanwhile Mal still recovering from her bone injury so keeping up with weight training and cycling. We dive into the upcoming race this weekend Run the Bays . There are four distances available for folks a 6k, 8.7k, half marathon and marathon distance. All at the beautiful Bay of Islands. It is stunning course and the finish line vibes are HIGH!! We can't wait to cheer everyone and wish the best for all that are racing. Next Dwayne and Mal reflect MCing for the Port Nikau Free Family Fun 5k event. It was a beautiful day for a 5k and great to see so many families out and about. Dwayne and Mal discuss the challenges of registration to race briefing but both felt really grateful to be representing His & Hers event . Thanks for the listens and all the wonderful comments from our previous episode. Feel free to drop us a comment or email us at chafingthedreamnz@gmail.com Byyyyyyyyeeeee