🏃🏃♀️Cape Kidnappers, Blue Lake & More
"...batteries died between Tutuwai and Smith Creek, leaving my headtorch with nothing to power it" Charlie Ruck
Your weekly fix of NZ trail running news
Welcome to Trail Running NZ: Wildly regarded as the best trail running newsletter to skim through during your boring AF corporate ‘Toolbox meeting’
Here’s what’s in the drop bag this week:
🏃🏃♀️Cape Kidnappers Trail Run
🏃🏃♀️Blue Lake Challenge Recap
🏃🏃♀️Brighton Beach Backyard Ultra
🎯Things You May Have Missed
📰SK News Desk
🏁Upcoming event: Rakiura Challenge, Marina 2 Marina
⛰️💊Mountain Skag Pic of the Week
Note: Due to the length, some email browsers will hide some of the content - make sure you click ‘view entire email’ or click through to substack.
I’m in Straya🦘 on holiday with the famdangles at the mo, so the 7th best NZ-based trail running newsletter has had to take a back seat.
Apologies that I wasn’t there to soften the blow of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning and I’m sorry if it doesn’t quite reach the usual sh💩t standard of accuracy, humour and gramma, grandma, grammer.
Cape Kidnappers Trail Run
Cape Kidnappers Trail Run made it through the Totalsport downsizing and under my preview radar last week. I must have been too excited thinking about another potential Blue Lake mudbath.
34KM
🏃 Men’s Podium
🥇Joshua Stewart- 3:01:18
🥈Oli Welfare - 3:09:36
🥉Michael Bush - 3:13:01
The results page doesn’t have any splits to work with, and Straya’s border patrol stopped my intel machine, so I thought I would see if this ‘Chat GPT’ thing was any good.
“Joshua Stewart smoked the competition with a 3:01:18, probably chasing the finish line snacks. Oli Welfare, clocking in at 3:09:36, couldn’t run from the irony of his last name. Michael Bush rolled in at 3:13:01, proving once again it’s tough to outrun a Bush... especially uphill!”
Ok, not bad. I do appreciate a good bush joke.
🏃♀️ Women’s Podium
🥇Kylie Middleton - 3:51:30
🥈Sharon Campbell - 4:10:58
🥉Christine O’Brien - 4:19:09
“Kylie Middleton crushed it with a 3:51:30, likely because someone mentioned mimosas at the finish line. Sharon Campbell came second at 4:10:58, probably stopping to check her Tinder mid-race. Christine O’Brien strolled in at 4:19:09, clearly taking the scenic route... or just waiting for someone to offer her a piggyback.”
Ok, that went a bit south. I don’t think the robots are quite ready to take over😂.
On 2nd thoughts, I think I’ll just let the 21km results speak for themselves …
21KM
🏃♀️ Women’s Podium
🥇 Morgan Bailey - 1:59:43
🥈 Lilly McKewen - 2:17:24
🥉Henny Syers - 2:19:18
🏃 Men’s Podium
🥇 Hayden Hughes - 1:39:42
🥈Andy Dysart - 1:58:52
🥉Tim Gilmour - 2:05:31
Full results are available HERE, including the 15km & 6km races
Check out Facebook for more coverage of the day.
The Blue Lake Challenge 10th Anniversary
I have barely been on the socials this week, but I did have a bit of a doom scroll on Sunday night. My legs went numb before I got through all of the Blue Lake Challenge posts raving about what a fantastic event it was this year.
I’ve never been to the Blue Lake Challenge, but I love that it started as a crazy idea in Chris Townley’s head. Now, it’s a fully-fledged commercial-sized (but still grassroots) event, complete with a spa pool, live music, a midnight marathon, and a devout following all around the country (minus Dunedin, of course).
Blue Lake's big focus is on challenging yourself and remembering that running is supposed to be fun, so there are no results as such. Congratulations to all those that turned up and ran, whether you crushed your goals or came up short. It’s the people that make events like this great.
But here are a couple of cool things that went down that I thought were worth a shout-out.
Luca Ahumada-Percoco got his mits on “The Claw” to become only the 2nd runner alongside Simon Cochrane to claim the once unobtainable trophy. Luca ran 204km, with over 3K vert in 23:37:18. That’s some next-level sh💩t.
Paul Austin completed 17 laps in full level 2 Firefighting gear to support 10-year-old Florence, who is in remission from leukemia. If you want to support his cause, you can grab the details on this FB Post.
A big shout-out to Chris Townley and the Blue Lake Challenge team. Doing anything for 10 years is incredibly tough, let alone something as complex as getting a f🤬ck load of runners to run around a lake in the same direction.
🍻Here’s to another 10 years of fun at the Blue Lake
Brighton Beach Backyard Ultra
🥇🏆👑Tom Turtle - 31yds / 208km
Top DNFs
🏃☠️Andy Smith - 30yds / 201.30km
🏃☠️Rocky Allen - 24yds / 161km
🏃♀️☠️Lydia Pattillo(🏆🏃♀️LWS) - 20yds / 134.20km
🏃♀️☠️Kate Polson - 17yds / 95km
86 runners turned up to do battle at the Brighton’s Backyard Ultra, but it was Tom’ Not A Tortoise’ Turtle who had a fairy tale finish, taking away the victory and CR over the weekend.
I didn’t realize this event was happening this year; I thought it was a one-and-done fundraiser. But here it is, part of the NZ Backyard Ultra Circus, but still raising money for the local school. How good?
As we saw last year, it’s a challenging course. It might be flat, but it’s pretty much all on the beach. That’s a lot of sand to keep out of all your crevices.
By all accounts, the event was a great success. Plenty of PBs, funds raised for the school, and a couple of local legends going at it hammer & thong, breaking the 200km mark.
Check out the Facebook page for more photos and results.
Things You May Have Missed
Katie Morgan notches up another win in Carnada, this time taking out
Gary RobbinsWhistler by UTMB 50km race. After a slow start to the year hampered by injury, Morgan is coming on strong just in time for the NZ summer. Kepler 3 Peat, anyone?
Inia Raumati, AKA The Ultra Maori Doctor, knocked off race 6 of his 8 continents, 8-stage race mission. He’s finished Grand To Grand Ultra in a time of 50:22:51 and good enough to take home the 40-49 trophy.
WUU2K Champ Olivia Lawrence ran her first 100km on none other than Wellington Tip Track. Yuck, yuck, yuck🤮. That’s 15 reps for anyone still not suitably impressed.
SK News Desk
It was hyped as the season opener for the Tararua SK season.
The Thriller in Vanilla. The Bumble in the Jungle. The Plow down the Terrykneecow.
The idea was simple: Set a Spring date for those wanting to complete an SK and bring some friendly competitiveness to the classic key swap.
Harriette Carr was also making an attempt after first completing the route back in the 90’s.
With the date and matchups set, all that was left was to pray to the weather gods. Friday’s forecast was for snow, with Saturday looking clear, if not a touch on the nippy side.
Hamish Meyrick VS Charlie Ruck
The Greytown Goat won this match-up by TKO. In the words of Chris Martini, “Sub 24 or it doesn’t count.” Hamish worked his way across the range in 22h24m, and Charlie missed out on the sub-24 glory, posting a time of 24h56m.
🎉Congratulations to Hamish on his achievement. I’m sure Charlie is disappointed to miss the sub-24, but wow, my mind is blown by this kid🤯.
He’s only 17 and just took down one of the biggest mountain running challenges in NZ in harsh winter conditions, pretty much solo.
Here is a snippet from his socials
“Snow, Ice, Wind, Rain, got lost in the Waiohine Gorge at midnight, and my headtorch died at 2 in the morning. My body was broken after only 6 hours, but I managed to bring it home and arrived in Kaitoke 24 hours and 56 minutes after leaving Putara”
Jonothan Armstrong VS Brendan Varty
The last time these 2 raced each other on the Tarn Ridge, Brendan broke the FKT and Jono posted the 4th fastest time. This time, the directions and roles were reversed.
After running the first 4 hours of the day with Charlie, Jono kicked ahead, fighting through the ice and snow to post a solid time of 22h34m, one of the fastest times for an icy traverse.
If the last round was a dream for Brendan, this was a nightmare.
It was shaping up to be a perfect day out, looking set to post a new FKT in the Kaitokie to Putara direction. However, it finished in the fetal position, freezing on the side of a mountain, waiting 11 hours for a chopper ride.
Unexpected torrential rain, howling winds, and icy conditions made the final 1/3 of the traverse challenging. Unfortunately, a slip-and-slide resulted in several injuries, turning Brendan’s day from thinking about a finish-line beer to making sure he made it out alive.
It’s important to note that Brendan was carrying full winter kit and a PLB, which, in this situation, most likely saved his life. Brendan is recovering well in hospital; big shout out to LandSAR for getting him out.
Harriette’ ‘Women of the Mountains’ Carr started in Putara with Jonothan and Charlie, methodically working her way down the range, unphased by the wintery conditions. She didn’t hit the sub-24, but she showed she has what it takes to break 24 hours on a dry track.
But wait, there’s more …
Angus ‘Fighter Pilot’ Ward also headed off early Sunday morning to have a crack at the Tarn Ridge SK. With the torrential rain moving through the Northern range the night before, the skies were now clear, and the ground soggy but thawed.
Angus was on a hot pace all day, looking destined for 18ish hours before bonking harder than Hugh Heffner heading up Cone Saddle. He pulled himself together, found the emergency death march switch, and got the job done in a still quick time of 20h46m.
🥳Angus Ward: 20h46m
🥳Hamish Meyrick: 22h24m
🥳Jonothan Armstrong: 22h34m
💪Charlie’ Ruck: 24h56m
💪Harriette Carr: 26h45m
💪Brendan Varty: DNF
Worst Run Ever by UTMB 🟣CurraNZ
Bugger! No Worst Run Evers this week, and the cupboard is empty.
Next week we will draw the CurraNZ winner for September.
Get your stories coming in for October. Send them to trailrunningnz@gmail.com
They can be short or long. Funny😂 or sad😭. You can own it, or it can be made anonymous. They can even have a happy ending. Every story goes into the draw to win a box of CurraNZ🟣
Upcoming Events
Rakiura Challenge - 32KM | 950M
Saturday, October 7th
Next weekend is the fourth running of the Rakiura Challenge, and it’s once again a sell-out (and I don’t mean Panhead— RIP original supercharger).
It’s a great chance to visit Stewart Island and experience the deep South. The course runs from Oban to Horseshoe Bay, following the Rakiura track. The highest point is only 200m above sea level, but you still manage to rack up 950m of vert accross the 32km race.
Now, obviously, this is a bit of a destination race, but the Rakiura Challenge team does a great job of making it as easy as possible.
For your $320 entry fee you get two meals, a prize-giving ticket, an event t-shirt, sponsorship products, discounted rates for Stewart Island Flights and RealNZ Ferry fares, and transport to the start line.
This seems like pretty good value considering the race is limited to only 250 entries.
Check out their Website or Instagram for more info.
Marina 2 Marina - Picton
Saturday, October 5th
From the very bottom of NZ to the top of the South. Marina 2 Marina is back in action for its 11th edition.
It’s a classic grassroots New Zealand event. All the volunteers are from local organizations, with proceeds from the race going back into these organizations to help their cause and benefit the greater Marlborough region.
There are 3 races on offer:
24km📏 - The Link
13km📏 - The Snout
10km📏 - Marina 2 Marina
Last year, ‘The Link’ was back in action after being canceled the year before after a weather bomb annihilated the trail. Having the 24-km course up and running is great for the event, making it well worth the trip.
If you’ve never run in the area before, here’s what to expect:
Panoramic views of the Marlborough sounds
Fast non-technical trail
Native Bush
Coastal running
A chance to see the Interislander Ferry lose steering, lose power, insert another issue here.
It’s a great opportunity to experience running in the Marlborough sounds and get a taste of the Queen Charlotte Trail.
Online entries close Thursday at 5 PM. You can enter on the day (except the 24km), but bring some cold, hard cash.
Check out their website or Facebook page for more info.
#Mountain Skag Pic Of The Week
This week’s Mountain Skag is from Heather McDonald who went down to run Race Tekapo and spent some extra time exploring Aoraki National Park. Check out this shot of a rainbow above the Mt. Cook Village.
Tag @trailrunning.nz and use #mountainskag on Instagram or email trailrunningnz@gmail.com to enter.
Every entry has a chance to win the monthly giveaway of a Mountain Skag T-shirt or hat.
We will be back next week with the Rakiura Challenge & Marina 2 Marina results and more.
It takes hours to write this newsletter but only 8 seconds to forward it to a friend.
PS: Sorry for missing the Monday mark this week😥. I do better.