Waitomo 23km 2026
18 April 2026
Pre Race
Me, Brett, Neville and Barnaby.
Brett had kindly offered the use of his bach in Marakopa for a fun weekend away and its proximity to the Waitomo Trail Run. He even drove us down there :)
We got caught in a classic Auckland southern motorway closure, and in spite of repeated discussion about following the obvious detour we somehow all managed to stupidly miss the required offramp and thus spent an extra 2 hours crawling along the (closed) SH1 near Botany. But we got to registration at Waitomo and eventually Marakopa.
I was feeling fit and well and really looking forward to having a fun run.
Race Day
Brett's relly Mark kindly agreed to drop us off at the start of the race (Mangapohue Natural Tunnel), which saved us lots of extra travel hassles.
The weather was predictably erratic. Heavy rain in the buildup ensured a waterlogged course, and the forecast for race-day was pretty dodgy. However the rain mostly held off during the race, and temperatures for running were sweet.
We wandered along to the start line, admiring the beaut limestone and kaast cliffs, and attached ourselves to the second start wave.
The start location and experience surpassed any expectations!
Once we got into the running groove, we trundled along the initial muddy, rooty and twisty single track. I love this stuff.
Nev was in the lead, with me next and Barnaby close behind. Brett was nursing some physical issues and unsure how he would go over 23km. Fortunately for him he was all good and his problems magically disappeared during the run!
Nev and I moved a bit ahead of Barnaby as he was sliding around humorously due to his unfortunate failure to bring his correct trail shoes. As we found out later, Barnaby slipped at one point and badly strained his back, after which he moved from race mode to survival mode.
We ran through and along the Marakopa stream a few times.
The Marakopa Cave was awesome! We whipped out our tiny headlamps and the footing was pretty ok to keep running at a decent speed.
Nev and I ran together pretty much the entire way, which was fun.
The terrain slowly opened out more and more until we got to the regions called the "rollercoaster", in which every downhill was followed by a corresponding uphill. We power walked the steeper longer hills, and I didn't really get too fatigued. (I was determined not to bonk so badly as I did in my last race at Tarawera!)
Nev and I swapped the lead a few times. The trail markings were generally pretty good, but one time leader Nev started heading off the wrong direction, which I found funny and somewhat scoffed at him about. I kindly spoke up so that he didn't go too far astray.
However shortly afterwards I was in the lead and I also ran the wrong way, so that evened up the score to 1-1. Then Nev again erred directionally , in a spot where we later figured out that Brett had also gone astray. Unlike us (who only went 10 meters wrong thanks to a rando guy behind us who shouted at us), Brett managed to go a long way up a wicked hill before he turned around. He claims that he was going to turn back earlier but had to rescue a lost damsel in distress, but that all sounded a bit unlikely...)
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