Wellington marathon runners hit with third Covid-19 postponement

The Wellington Marathon has been hit with a third postponement. Photo / 123rf

From hours of training in the rain to road closures and sponsors, runners in the capital are feeling the loss of the Wellington marathon this weekend - now postponed for a third time due to Covid-19.

More than 5000 entrants were to take part in the Wellington marathon on Sunday, which was postponed on Wednesday following an announcement the city would be at level 2 restrictions.

The Wellington Region was put into alert level 2 until at least Sunday night, after it was revealed an Australian tourist who spent two days in the capital later tested positive for Covid-19.

It is the third time the Wellington Marathon has been rescheduled, after being postponed from June to August in 2020, before it was eventually cancelled until 2021.

Wellington marathon event manager Michael Jacques said the postponements had taken a huge financial toll on the event.

Months of preparation from organisers and participants had gone into the event. Photo / 123rf

"We haven't been able to get one off the start-line but we've still spent maybe $150,000 along the way," he said.

"We organise five events annually and every single one of them has been hit with a postponement or cancellation, this one three times now."

There was a "mind-boggling" list of costs associated with organising an event on this scale, from traffic management, to sponsors and volunteers.

Wellington runner Malcolm Hodge had been eyeing his first marathon on Sunday and had been training since February, putting in about 10 hours of running each week.

"As we get into winter it's squeezing in a workout after dark, in the rain – you don't get to pick the best weather to do it in so you just go when you can," he said.

"Now it's just a case of sitting back and chilling for a week or two, and then hopefully it goes ahead in October and we can build up again."

It wasn't the first time Hodge had trained for a marathon only to have it cancelled.

"I was actually going to do Vancouver last year because I was living there," he said.

"That was going to be my first one and then that one was cancelled. So it's the second time I've trained for one and I still haven't done one."

Emily Solsberg had planned to her 15th marathon in Wellington in June 2020, before it was postponed and then cancelled due to Covid.

"This is my second time entering it and my first was in 2005," she said.

"That was first one I ever did, and last year I think would have been my 15th one, 15 years later. I thought there was quite a good symmetry to it but it wasn't to be."

She had not been expecting a personal best, but was hoping to run it faster than she had completed the Wellington marathon in 2005.

Wellington Scottish Athletics Club President Michael Wray said they had around 80 club members running in one of Sunday's events.

"In 2020 our race calendar got quite decimated, so we've become quite accustomed to targeting a race and knowing that there is a possibility that it will move," he said.

"We did think we had emerged from that for now."

He suspected a number of them would run on the weekend to make use of their race day fitness, even though it would not give them an official time.

A huge amount of training had gone into runners' marathon preparation, with some participants running up to 200km a week.

The Wellington Marathon was scheduled for Sunday June 27. Photo / 123rf

"A marathon in particular has more of a time commitment for training than the other events," Wray said.

"You are making a serious commitment, running 5–7 days a week. Some days you're only out there for half an hour but some days its three hours."

The time and commitment needed to run a marathon was mirrored by the preparation efforts of event organisers, which had been hit hard by cancellations.

Michael Jacques said the industry was still deeply affected by Covid, and was particularly concerned about the costs felt by smaller companies.

"The event industry, we were the first affected, and because of the fact that we are nothing if not mass gatherings, we will be the last ones affected," he said.

"The event industry is probably 80 percent small operators … and things like this, people can quite easily lose houses over it.

"There's bigger companies out there that can weather the storm but the diversity of the industry is what makes it what it is.

"For every Auckland marathon, which is a great event, there's a Masterton marathon run by clubs, and the Wellington marathon which is basically just a Mum and Dad business."

They were tentatively looking at marathon dates in early October, he said.