English runner Adrien Prigent and American Sally McRae are the first ever men's and women's 100-mile (160km) endurance race winners at the Tarawera Ultramarathon.
The 100-mile race, which was introduced to the event this year, included narrow single-track trails, wide trails, forestry and sealed roads, forests, lakes, geothermal features and finished at Rotorua's Government Gardens. It included 40km of tracks which had never been used in an event before.
In wet and muddy conditions Prigent finished in 19h 38m 32s and McRae in 21h 11m 10s, both considerably slower than the expected winning times in dry conditions, which demonstrates the effect the weather had on the course.
The 102km race winners were Dylan Bowman (8h 27m 41s) and Kelly Wolf (10h 8m 45s), the 87km winners were Joris Kiredjian (8h 25m 11s) and Kristen Brace (10h 43m 24s), and the 62km winners were Vajin Armstrong (5h 36m 18s) and Lucy Bartholomew (5h 37m34s).
Hundreds of runners made the journey down the home stretch to the finish line at Government Gardens during the Tarawera Ultramarathon at the weekend. Photo / Stephen Parker
Rotorua runner Dafydd Malcolm snuck in under 24 hours in the 100-mile race, finishing in 23h 42m 49s. This year was a case of ultimate redemption as he attempted the 102km run last year, but had to pull out with a stomach bug.
"I was aiming for sub-24 hours and found myself having to run it in hard, but had just enough time to grab the kids to cross the line with me. I didn't cry but that was probably dehydration.
"The pattern of rain leading up to the race built up a lot of mud on the Eastern Okataina and Northern Tarawera trails. I slipped and wallowed in that mud about seven times. I was confident of finishing once I had climbed the Western Okataina at 107km.
"I was lucky to have my family meet me throughout the day. I kept positive focusing on when I would see them next. The toughest thing last year was having my daughter ask when I was going to finish and they could have the party and having to explain that I had quit. But they weren't in much of a party mood at 4am anyway," Malcolm said.
Race director Tim Day summed up the weekend in one word: "Magic".
"It's been wonderful, we've had hundreds of runners out in the forest from 4am on Saturday to 4pm today . They get it. They entered this race because they got what our vision and our dream for this journey around our landscape was.
"At the finish line people are very tired and emotional, this is probably the biggest thing they've done in their life for many of them. We asked at the registration and for two-thirds of them it was there first ever 100-mile race. So it really is people pushing themselves further than they ever have before.
"We had people who have nothing to do with trail running down at the finish line, engrossed by watching very real human, raw emotions. If that inspires mum to take the kids out in the forest next Saturday, for a 5km walk or a 2km walk, or even just walk around the park down the road, that's a real win," Day said.
