Shotover Moonlight Marathon 2024
17 February 2024
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/13997163867
https://www.strava.com/activities/10776949259
http://shotovermoonlight.co.nz/
https://www.strava.com/activities/10776949259
http://shotovermoonlight.co.nz/
The Buildup
Me, Barnaby, Neville and Michal had been signed up to this run for some months, so I had been fairly motivated to train hard over xmas and January. I pretty much ran every second day over the Mimiha land or similar, so I had some good (injury free) miles under my belt and I was feeling strong. Time to smash out a good run!
There was a great deal of anti-trash-talking prior to the race, ranging from 'I haven't run for 17 years and had pneumonia for most of that time' (Nev) to 'My shinsplints and various ailments meant that I've only jogged a total of 10km in the last 10 months' (Michal) to 'My physio says I must disown all friends since they only injure me' (Barnaby).
In contrast, I stayed quiet, smug in the knowledge that I was going to sprint away from the other pretenders and get on the 50+ podium. Hmm.
The Trip
Me, Barnaby, Neville and Michal flew down to Queenstown on Friday and settled into our hostel room (Aspen Lodge Backpackers), which was spartan but very suitable. We had borrowed Steve and Tracey's car (thanks!) which made logistics much simpler. On the Sunday we went to Arrowtown for sightseeing and brunch etc. Lovely stroll along the Arrow river. Lorna joined Barnaby for the Humpridge great walk (the first day in the windy rain!).
The Day
We got up at 4:45am and drove out to Moke Lake (finish line) in eerie darkness.
The weather was sweet!! Calm, cool initially at 7C! But only forecast to rise to 23C, which seemed pretty satisfactory.
The bus from Moke Lake (once we finally found it) took us back into town and then out along the Skipper's Canyon road. A nice sunrise greeted us.
This road journey is a magical part of the trip, which I would pay money just to experience.
The sheer drop-offs and the precarious cliff-edge drive was pretty scary and only heightened our sense of impending disaster...
The Skipper's Bridge is fab!
You get to the actual startline of the race by descending way down from Skipper's old bridge down into the river below.
This is very pretty and appealing, until you slowly realise that you are about to hear the starting gun and immediately need to climb back up all that elevation!
The Race
We started out at 8:10am, climbing up out of the stream and heading up along the true right bank of the Shotover River.
Barnaby led the way, setting a strong (but only slightly unreasonably fast) pace which kept us breathing hard. Michal suffered from some sore shinsplints on the first 4km, and was a little behind, but fortunately he came right and caught us 3 up. We were fast tramping the hills and jogging the nice single track.
The trail varied during the day, but the one constant was the need for vigilance in where you stepped. A couple of kilometers along the trail was a deep, leg-sized, partially hidden, hole which Barnaby spotted and warned us about. We heard afterwards that one lady wasn't so lucky, and broke her ankle for a free chopper ride out! :(
The trail predominantly climbed up and up for the first quarter. We were all loving it. The air was cool (or at least not too hot), and life was good.
From 4km to around 7km we ran along the watercourse which the old-timers had carved out of the hillside.
The helicopters circled around the course all day, keeping on eye on us elite runners I guess?
The trail climbed up a stream for some time, which was the least well-marked course. We sometimes wondered where we were going, but Barnaby's leadership skills became apparent as he showed us the way. (or perhaps he was just following the girls running with us??)
Nice tussock country.
At about the 11km mark, Michal suddenly put on a huge burst of speed and ran hard up some particularly gnarly slopes to zoom ahead of me, Barnaby and Nev. (Michal would later suggest that we had slowed down, but I'm not buying that story!)
So Michal summited the high point (1081m) a few minutes before rest of us at around the 12km mark.
The views were spectacular. (Just consider this statement to be repeated every paragraph or so, to avoid me typing it repeatedly!)
Barnaby was starting to get some blisters by this point. (Due to the uneven running camber and damp shoes), so he stopped to attend to these while we briefly contemplated his predicament before abandoning him to his fate.
We ran down the long, long grassy slope, which separated us into a sequence of Michal, Neville, Me, then Barnaby.
After a while, I caught up to Nev and Michal and we ran mostly together for quite a way.
We ran down "Death Ridge", but didn't fall off.
Nice running trails.
It was fun to slide down the scree slope. The gravel was quite fine, and got into all our shoes and socks. I never bothered to clear mine out, and just ran the rest of the race with sandy gravel in my shoes :)
My Hoka Tecton X shoes were simply superb all day. I had done the laces up fairly tight at the start, and never had a moment's discomfit. My toes never got mashed (in spite of crazy downhills), and even with wet feet I felt light and agile all day.
Down at a river we finally got fully wet feet.
The 'ladder section' was a bit of an anti-climax. It was, um, a ladder.
This part of the track took us up a stream (the Moonlight????) which was super super pretty. I'm a sucker for mossy river banks. Plus waterfalls.
Me, Nev and Michal traversed together along a nice bit of forested single track, where the air wasn't very hot and we were nearing the half-way stage of the race at 21km. Michal just dropped back a bit behind us at this point.
We got to the Moonlight Lodge at about the 24km mark, and I had a well-timed toily stop and filled up my water bladder and re-applied suncream etc. This lodge is very fancy (you can stay there) and we felt a bit intrusive going into the nicely made-up apartments in our sweaty, dirty state to use their toilets.
(does anyone have a photo of the lodge??)
They had bananas, nibbles, etc. Some guys filled up with coke etc.
There had already been 3 or 4 basic aid stations at which we'd drunk several cups of water at each. So I didn't feel too dehydrated and my 1.25 litres of water in my camelbak was just nicely depleted.
So now Nev and I climbed up away from the lodge (Michal was just 10 minutes behind, and had to queue for the loos). Initially it wasn't too steep, but we were no longer under any sort of tree cover and it was getting hotter. We climbed up, and climbed up, and climbed up. I was really starting to get rather stuffed at this point. The uphill got steeper and my power walking became a slow shuffle!
Nev was looking strong, and his presence a constant 20 meters in front of me helped my motivation.
The views were big.
We finally got to the local highpoint. You can hear in my voice in this video below that I am close to losing my sense of humour :) !
But Nev and I made it down successfully to the stream and bridge at the bottom. (Nev was going a bit slower than he was capable of so that I could keep up with him - thanks Nev!)
I swigged some crampstop, which temporarily fixed the problem.
I waved Nev on, and resorted to a rather lame attempt at ambulation. This hill went up along a 4wd road track, and I happened to be on my own just here. I walked up the road for a kilometer or so, and got a little worried that I hadn't seen an orange marker for ages and perhaps I'd foolishly missed a turn off! Fortunately I finally saw a marker and didn't need to backtrack my steps. (whew)
I got up to the next aid station and was feeling pretty nauseous and suffering from intermittent cramp. I pushed on and after another kilometer or so I had a spew. I've never done this in a race before. Nothing came out (which surprised me - I thought I might have been full of gels and muesli bars), and I'd forgotten just how rotten you feel when your chest/diaphragm is heaving bile and the sun is burning down. For a couple of minutes I thought perhaps I was actually in serious trouble (eg heat exhaustion, hyperthermia). But after my little vomit, I soon felt a bit less ill, and got some confidence back that I wasn't on death's door. My pace was very slow, but I was managing to jog most of the flats and downhills.
I got down to the river, yay! This is the river that flows out of Moke Lake (ie, we were walking upstream). It was nice to get my feet wet and have a splash.
There was a tunnel.
The trail criss-crossed the river so many times! Like, every 20 meters it seemed to cross!
I tried running a few times here, but quickly got cramp each time, so I resorted to a brisk(ish) walk.
I met up with a 30km walker and chatted to her for several slow walking kilometers along the stream.
Finally the valley opened up, and I could tell that we were about 2.5 km from the end. My watch indicated that I was going to just miss out on beating my previous race time if I walked, so I stumbled into a jog for the last 2.5km and managed to beat my 2020 time by 1 minute :)
Then Michal finished.
The Wrap
Before starting this race, I had hoped to beat my 2020 time (tick) and get close to a podium (cross). I suspect that such long events just don't agree with me. I tried using some gavescon this year when I felt nauseous (in case it was reflux), but this made no difference. Both cramp and nausea were approximately equal inhibitors.
Nev smashed it into 2nd 50+ male! (23 minutes ahead of me), and Michal did super well on limited training. Barnaby was slowed by 20+ minutes by blister maintenance problems, or else he would have been challenging for the lead.
We were lucky that the day wasn't particularly hot (23C). It can be much hotter there sometimes!
An excellent weekend away!
The Results
Nev did 7:13:31, although his watch and Strava suggest he might not have even turned up for the race??
I did 7:36:36
Michal did 7:45:51
Barnaby did 7:51:32
Great report as always Dave! Thanks, Michal 🙂
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