‘It’s always 5 o’clock somewhere.’ A help phrase to justify a needed pint to get you through a dark place. Whether or not this is helpful with the effects Hurricane Abigail a near memory, but I was thinking of fellow Carnethies – or anyone having done the recent Belahouston Park Cross country – when I was thinking ‘It’s always summer somewhere.’ Well currently I am glad to say it is summer in New Zealand right now – or at least it was on Saturday when Rachel and I took part in our inaugural race in NZ. We had entered it before we left the UK and had been looking forward to it for a while.
It was a stunning course on a stunning day. Mostly hard packed trails (Mudclaws a bit of an overkill) taking in high vistas, forest paths and lakeside routes. This is all near Rotorua – one of the most geothermically active parts of a geothermically active country. The start was not atmospheric due to inappropriate dry ice but steam from the geysers. The fug of sulphur was an unusual contrast to the usual fug of deep heat and sulphur (hang on??) at the start of the race. At least this was straight out of the ground rather than straight out of some HBT or Westies’ ar*e.
This was only the second running of the race and is still very much the little brother to the more iconic 100k race that takes place in Feb run by the same organisers and was full months ago. However it was superbly organised with great marshals, a very clear track which took in all the main sites round about and nice beers and BBQ sausages at the end for competitors. It is probably a trail ultra for road runners rather than serious trail/fell runners here but the atmosphere was great all the way round.
We were aiming to get round without too much training in the bank which we did and managed to pick up 1st Carnethy Male and Female, 1st Scots Male and Female (Rachel first UK female) – you get the idea. There was only one other person I saw wearing a club vest of any sort – Wellington Scottish – a very handy club round these parts.
Sadly got beaten by the man in the skeleton morphsuit – what can you do?
A great race. I can also report that there is a pretty enthustiastic trail/fell running scene in Wellington with last weekend the Aorangi Undulator 100k race taking place over 3 days, with the 33km on the middle day a race for more folk – 80 compeititors for the one day and a further 20 doing the 100k. See below for another interesting topic of conversations and something in the mind for next year.
http://www.sportsplits.com/Home/QuickResults?clientId=34&raceId=627&raceName=Tarawera%20Trail%20Marathon%20and%2050KM
https://tararuafkt.wordpress.com/
Tom Middlemiss