Routeburn Classic 2023
28 April 2023
Te Anau / Divide / Glenorchy
A 32km run from the main Divide to near Glenorchy, along the Routeburn Track Great Walk.
32km, 1327m vert, 3:58:17 time
Pre-Race
Will and I caught the Friday flight down to Queenstown and my brother Steve drove us into town for lunch. We caught the event bus over to Te Anau to stay at the Distinction Hotel. We wandered around the lake after dinner looking for aurora australis, but with pretty dubious success.
Will and I caught the Friday flight down to Queenstown and my brother Steve drove us into town for lunch. We caught the event bus over to Te Anau to stay at the Distinction Hotel. We wandered around the lake after dinner looking for aurora australis, but with pretty dubious success.
Race Day
We caught the early event bus at 6:30am to be driven over to the Divide where we would start the run.
The weather was fantastically clear and calm.
At times we were in a group of about 8 runners, and I so so enjoyed this section. The track was runnable, everyone was happy, the scenery was lovely, and I felt strong and light on my feet as we swept along - jumping and getting some great endorphins going.
We got through to the beautiful Earland Falls.
The early (western) parts of the run are through old, wet, mossy rainforest. Just the way I like it!
The day was still sunny.
We got to Harris Saddle Shelter, which we thought (and I remembered from 2021) was the high point. We were getting tired after relentless climbing, but the trail just kept going up. And up.
For some reason Will was complaining about the never-ending uphill.
Eventually, we got to the true top and started descending down the steep rocky path. I still felt ok, and ended up leading on this section.
We ran dangerously fast down the hill. I was sure that the heavy breather just behind me was Will (urging me on), so I kept my eyes down and descended as fast as I could. After getting to the bottom of the first long section, I finally turned around and was super surprised to find some other random dude just behind me. Will was miles back up on the hill still! I wasn't sure if he was injured or something, but he gave me a wave so I ran on. It turned out that he had been suffering from cramp on the way down, and had stopped to eat and drink more.
The last 7km is very easy running with a mostly downhill gradient.
I was still running comfortably on the long last downhill sections. The track was much better and very easy running.
With about 3km to go, I heard the dreaded sound behind me of Will steaming up at pace. He swept past me and I raised my speed to hang onto his coattails. He had been getting cramp on the uphills, but he confidently told me that there were no more uphills, so he was (basically, paraphrasing slightly...) going to crush me on the last 3km. At that very moment, we encountered a very small hill and Will immediately cramped severely. This was rather comical (for me, not him!), and I nearly stopped to help him before deciding instead to run off towards the finish line.
I kept up a good pace and finished feeling reasonably ok, with Will eventually recovering the use of his legs and also coming in at under the magic 4 hour mark.
We caught the bus back to Queenstown (which took ages to leave), and Mr Barker decided that a little bit of salt on his hot chips was a good anti-cramp idea.
Overall the event was super fun. It is complicated by the need for multiple bus trips etc, but the scenery and running buzz were great.
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