Motatapu Ultra 2025

 

Motatapu Ultra 2025

1 March 2025

52km, 3094 vertical meters, 10:56:41 time

https://www.strava.com/activities/13755523663/overview

https://www.sportsplits.com/races/motatapu-2025

Prelim

Last year, for some reason (which remains unclear), 5 of us signed up to run one of the toughest trail runs. Barnaby is clearly mostly to blame. Many months of running training followed. This was unfortunately matched by an equally large amount of inactivity, overeating and ageing, followed by a fair number of character assassinations, denigrations and general despair. 

I was worried for a while that I might have to pull out at the last minute, having stood on a wasp nest in Northland on Wednesday and being stung 8 times.

However, Dr Luff prescribed me double the maximum allowed dose of antihistamine and the swelling in my legs had mostly subsided by race day. (Whew!)

So (somehow) Michal, Nev, Barnaby, Will and I were all lacking good excuses and we flew down to Queenstown on Friday afternoon. The flight was smooth and we were in fine spirits.

We decided to catch the bus from Frankton to our accommodation in Arrowtown, which was a mere $2 each! So we boarded the bus marked for Arrowtown and were rather bemused when it turned West towards QT. We asked the driver, and he assured us he was going to Arrowtown, so we sat back as we journeyed into QT central and apparently out towards Arrowtown the 'long way'. After driving along Gorge road through to Arthur's Point we were getting near Arrowtown. The driver then turned the bus 180 degrees and headed back towards QT! We went and checked with him again, and he said yes, yes, he was going to Arrowtown. So we drove all the way back through QT, and right back to Frankton Junction where we had boarded! This round-trip took 75 minutes! We were still sitting like patsies on the bus. 

As we drove off again, we finally did go to Arrowtown. 

That evening, we packed all the large amount of compulsory equipment and food and water and torches and poles and suncream and hat and pills etc into our packs, which took a long time, while we fretted about tomorrow.... Our running packs were approaching 5kg each, which was *not good*.

Race Day

We awoke at 3:30am for our 4:15am bus ride from Arrowtown central. We had allowed 15 minutes to walk to the bus from home, but hadn't accounted for the complete darkness and our lack of any directional sense. We left home and walked along some random roads until we eventually realised that we were getting rather late for the bus. This then required running (with all our gear plus drop bags) down and up various utterly unnecessary and extremely annoying roads until we eventually arrived hot and bothered at the bus, which barely loaded us on before very promptly departing.

We were driven around to Wanaka and then to the Glendhu Bay startline at about 5:40am, giving barely enough time for a quick toily stop, vaseline application, fumbling in the dark for a headtorch, bag drop and missing 95% of the (compulsory) race briefing.

And we were off!

The first hour was pitch black, as we navigated by headtorch up the valley stream bank and lovely single track. We were jogging along happily together. On the slower pinch points uphill I was able to film on my phone.

After sunrise, I extracted my running poles from my bag and used them for the entire rest of the day.

I did trip at one point and nearly fall headfirst down a little streamlet chasm, to all our amusement.

I was drinking and eating well - every 30 minutes I had either a Maurten's gel, OSM bite, muesli bar, etc, and trying to drink more than normal. Fortunately, it was the first overcast and slightly cooler day in Otago for weeks, and the temperature and weather all day was fabulous for running. 

The trail mostly follows the Te Araroa, and the first hut and water station was at Fern Burn Hut after 1:40, where I refilled about 750ml of water and rudely ignored the suggestion of showing my compulsory gear to the marshal. 

We continued up and up (mostly power walking the uphills) 

and finished the first climb (Jack Hall's Saddle, 1275m) of just under 1000m vertical at the 12km mark after 2.5 hours total. 

A big down and after a smaller hill blip I had managed to successfully drink all of my 2 litres of water. (good work me!) and we got happily to the second hut/checkpoint after 3:10 for a refill.

The climb up from this hut was long and steep. 

Nev and Barnaby powered up quite fast, with Will further ahead. I started off ahead of Michal.

Michal eventually caught me and the next big big hill we summitted together after 5:20. 

Michal and I mostly stayed together through to hut 3, where we 5 were all briefly united again before Will and then the others moved off. I refilled another full 2 liters of water (having drunk my reservoir nicely judged).

The day was still fairly cool, and in fact on the top of some hills the strongish tail wind made it feel a bit cold. This was perfect for running!

I got to the last top peak at 1pm (7 hours in, 29km done but still 23 to go!). I was generally feeling very good. I had some vague inner thigh cramp issues, but I sucked on a few fizzy salt tablets and that seemed to help. (Unlike Will, who had 12 salt tablets but amazingly his blood didn't crystalize). I wasn't moving very fast, but still running the downhills and flats at an ok pace. My running poles were a huge advantage - both going up and down. I did trip over them a few times, but nothing too embarrassing :)

One final long steep descent took me and Michal down to the Arrow River, where we started the huge number of stream crossings. (The river was low, so the high-water route was not an option). 

The cold water was very nice and refreshing as we zig-zagged our way down past the invisible Macetown along the 4-wheeled drive river track. I was still mostly jogging through this section, albeit slowly. 

The other guys were off ahead, with Michal racing off swiftly past me after Macetown (as I tired and slowed).

With about 3.5km to go I did have a bit of a bad moment, where I felt rather terrible, with sudden nausea and dry retching for a few minutes. (nothing came up). 

So I decided to just walk the last 3km from this point, which was nice :) Probably in retrospect I could have drunk and even eaten more in the last hour or two which might (maybe) have prevented this nausea?

Will smashed it in 9:30 (lets not quibble about a few seconds...), for 3rd in 50+ !!

Neville did 10:01, Barnaby 10:14 and Michal finished strongly in 10:24

I finished the 52km in 10:56, which I am very pleased with, especially the fact that I felt not too nauseous (mostly) throughout the run. I attribute this to *more drinking*, taking salt tablets, Maurten's Gels and also lots of other eating such as OSMs. If the day had been scorching hot, then this would have been a lot tougher and dehydration would have been guaranteed! (And if it had been cold or windy/rainy then some portions up in the hills would have been freezing. ) I actually only lost about 2 kg over the weekend (71..69), which was less than normal.

Wrap

Everyone did super well! No injuries, and a great experience.

My legs after the run were really not too smashed. Sore quads, but not very bad. I think my poles helped a lot here. I enjoyed the tasteless Maurten's gels (both cafffeinated and not), and also the OSMs. But we all carried too much food (except Nev, obviously!) - I had lots left over. I had taken a few neurofens during the leadup to running (due to concerns about my swollen wasp'd legs), which meant that I started the run feeling pretty non-achy for a change. Very pleasant! I had one more neurofen at 20km mark I think. 

My shoes (Hoka Tecton X) were perfect - light, grippy enough, good in the stream. None of the track was very technical, and even if it had been wet, then I think they would have been ok although could then have maybe considered something with more tread grip.

We all agreed No More Ultras!  But, hey, we've said that before... And the KMR beckons...