ULTRA IMPRESSIVE

WITH HOURS OF STUNNING LAKE AND RIVERSIDE RUNNING, THE TARAWERA ULTRA-MARATHON WAS AWESOME … BUT 80KM IS ONE HANG OF A LONG WAY.

“This is a race I’ll never forget. It’s memorable not just for its epic distance but for its mind-blowing scenery and terrain. There are only a handful of true ultra-marathons in New Zealand - I can see this one becoming a fast favorite. It’s only a matter of time before the secret gets out. It’s one of the best trail runs in the country, no question.”

That’s how effusively Kerry Suter rated the Tarawera Ultra-marathon, after winning the 80km+ race in an impressive 7hrs 22min. Few would have disagreed with the Hamilton Hawk, although on the finish line, some expressed their praise with a more basic “damn that was hard!” Admittedly, the Rotorua to Kawerau course drops a total of 400m in elevation, but that statistic belies the fact that there are also hundreds of metres of climbing and perhaps 40km of the trails are pretty rugged. The stark truth is, only a handful of the runners finished inside ten hours; some ran till twilight.

The big day started in the half-light of the giant Redwoods, with many wearing a headlamp. Across the categories, there were over 70 athletes. Keep in mind that the Hawkes Bay’s Triple Peaks was the same day, and this was the first Tarawera Ultra: clearly the allure, or insanity, of pushing personal limits to the maximum is not inconsiderable. Some were in for the 55km short (hah!) haul, others were in teams; but most were biting off the whole mighty shebang.

Padding off across a blanket of pine needles, following needles of torchlight, it was straight down to business. The course climbs 200m in the first 3km – a right grunt. Within ten minutes the field was in ones and twos. But the air was cool and calm, absolutely perfect conditions.

Suter and Chris Morrissey led the way from the start. “I knew that outside the overwhelming distance, Chris would be the biggest challenge. We’ve raced against one another a handful of times before. He’d showed his caliber by smashing me each and every time,” refl ected the Hawk. “Several times I looked at my [GPS] watch and wondered whether our pace would be sustainable. But I was sticking to my primary goal of keeping Chris close,” he noted.

The pair traded the lead for over two hours, around Blue lake and Lake Okareka. Suter would nudge away on the technical descents, Morrissey would power back on the climbs. But at 25km, on the western Okataina track, Suter broke the elastic – albeit thinking that Morrissey was still just behind. “

On the long descent to Okataina lodge I really got a chance to take the brakes off,” the 31-year-old said. At the lakeside, at 35km, he had a five-minute lead over Morrissey, with several more minutes back to one Jimmy “Jetpack”. Holding it steady not far behind that were Whakatane’s Jim Robinson and Jo Petersen, the latter a GP who each year contests an extreme marathon or ultra-marathon in some far fl ung corner of the globe. Petersen’s ticked Antarctica, Everest and Chile off his list of challenges; in May 2009 he’ll tackle 250km in the desert of Namibia (see jo4hospice. wordpress.com).

Okataina had one of ten excellent aid stations, about one an hour. This one was staffed by Whakatane’s Phoenix Health Centre, where Petersen works. “The aid stations were outstandingly well stocked,” enthused Suter, who reckoned he got through his day on “nine litres of electrolyte drink, tube after tube of race gel, and enough cramp-stop spray to drop a horse.” The aid stations offered all runners Em’s Power Cookies and Bars, GU, lollies, bananas, chips and other snacks, plus water, coke and electrolyte drink. Just as well, too, because according to several online calculators, six to seven thousand calories is a fair estimation of day’s energy demand.

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Results: www.taraweraultra.co.nz

STORY BY + JIM ROBINSON
PHOTOS COURTESY + RYAN THOMPSON; PAUL CHARTERIS