Due to the early 8am Saturday morning start we did what many of the other competitors did and headed out to camp at Holdsworth roadend on the Friday night. We left the railway station at 6pm, and after a substantial dinner at Istanbul in Carterton we set up our tents and had an early night. Cars trickled in throughout the evening, and by the following morning the campsite was covered in one- and two-man tents and bivvy bags – a strange site given that Holdsworth is normally home to more palatial tents.
The four of us woke up early in plenty of time for breakfast and race registration. As with last year we had a choice of race direction, but all four of us decided to go with the more popular up-Jumbo-down-Holdsworth anti-clockwise direction.
After the race briefing we were off, starting with a reasonably flat section to Atiwhakatu Hut. On arriving at the swing bridge and seeing a queue of about 25 people I made the decision to try and cross the creek instead, although made a complete mess of it by taking the wrong route down to the river and getting hilariously lost as the remaining runners looked on with amusement. During what should have been a 30 second river crossing I was overtaken by four people. Not a great performance. On the plus side I did keep the shoes dry.
Sharron arrived shortly thereafter, and whilst waiting to cross the swing bridge she searched through her pack and discovered to her horror that she had left her caffeinated energy gel sachets in her tent. She was forced to suffer the indignity of running the race with only non-caffeinated energy gels.
The grunt up Raingauge spur went as expected. As we came out above the bushline we were a bit surprised to see fellow WTMC member Maarten Ruiter at Jumbo Hut helping with the race marshalling.
Just after turning off at Jumbo Peak I landed badly and heard a loud crack from my right ankle. Other runners kindly stopped to ask if I was okay, but I waved them on and told them I would “walk it off”. After a few minutes I was moving again, albeit very slowly and carefully, and made my way along the tops to be overtaken by Sarah, and then Sharron.
Just below Powell Hut I bumped into a medic, who said there was pretty much nothing they could. “If you’ve got this far you might as well keep going. Try not to fall down the stairs.” Thanks!
I made it from Powell Hut down to Mountain House Shelter without seeing anybody else, before being overtaken by another wave of runners, including Gareth.
After the finish I headed straight to the waiting Ambulance for a bandage and some ice packs for the ankle, while the rest of the group enjoyed the after-race BBQ.
We hung around for the very generous prize giving and came away with a few goodies for our efforts, including a jacket, first aid kit, and a DOC annual hut pass. We then made a quick return to our camp to break down the tents and clean up, and headed back to Wellington via a short ice-cream stop in Carterton.
A followup on the ankle two days later confirmed no breaks, but ruptures of all three major ligaments. Will be a bit of a slow recovery, with 10 days in a moonboot and then a bit of rehab. Still, a great time was had all around, and looking forward to doing it again next year.
Times and results were as follows:
- Sarah Fisher 71st 3:42:22
- Sharron Came 77th 3:48:58
- Gareth Morton 92nd 4:06:13
- David Heffernan 98th 4:11:13