Taranaki Off-Road Half Marathon

This race wasn’t originally on my 2020 calendar. I mean I’d looked at it longingly for a couple of years but it hadn’t ever popped up as a must do. This is something I definitely corrected last weekend and I will continue to see this as one of my calendar races. Luckily enough I had an awesome friend who convinced me that it was a great idea. The conversation went a bit like this ....

K: “You want to do the Taranaki half marathon?”

T: “Heck yeah where do I sign up.” 

So as you can see I have an extremely flexible rubber arm that requires no pressure at all to agree to a run. I loved the race and the venue - it was such an awesome place to run. 

The weekend started as most do with a road trip south and all went well until the tire blowout north of Huntly. Lucky for me my race buddy had Whanau who came to the rescue. After repairs had been done we were again on our way again - woohoo! road trip time. 

As we drove south the sun was getting closer and closer to the western horizon so we stopped at Mokau on the coast north of New Plymouth for some photos and what magnificent photos they were. Continuing south we arrived in New Plymouth as the remaining light silhouetted Mt Taranaki beautifully. Arriving at our accommodation we swiftly hit the sack and spent an evening studying the inside of our eyelids. 

5.45am the alarm went off. I cursed it and lay there for a moment before remembering that it was race morning. Diving out of bed I did normal race prep including toe taping which is a rigmarole but has saved my toes from endless indignities, so well worth the trouble. 

7am collection of race numbers and final race prep including the obligatory coffee to ensure I kept my eyes wide open. I had a look around at the terrain I could see and thought “sweet, it’ll be right”. What I obviously wasn’t quite awake enough to realise was I got the wrong word it should have been “sweet it’ll be height!”. 

8.50 shuffling into position according to how fast we were. I was at the back - lol, nothing unusual there as this is usually where I end up anyway. Safety briefing and then the moment we had all been waiting for - the starter's gun. Everyone was off straight into the beautiful terrain. Getting to the top of the first hill I was thinking "sweet that’s my elevation done"... oops guilty of assumption number 2. Down the hill we went and then into a stunning section of single trail through the trees before hitting the road again for a couple of hundred metres. Then it was down the hill to the dam and across the spillway and up onto the dam itself. I could hear Allan the photographer up ahead and seeing the trees shaking thought he was up the tree - assumption number 3. He was indeed amongst the trees but was taking our photos with the perfect backdrop of Mt Taranaki in all its glory. 

Then it was back up the hill again and this one was a steep little beast of a climb that took us up onto the top of the ridge. It was here I met Cindy. Lucky for me she stopped me saying that we had mutual friends. Lucky in that it started an amazing partnership where we both worked together to make it to the end. At this point I was only 3kms into the race and was already puffing hard up those steep little climbs. With each one I was thinking "surely we’ve almost climbed the mountain" but nope, just around the corner another sneaky hill was waiting to jump out in front of us. This was definitely a race of sneaky hills and was definitely well planned for adventure. The funniest moment though (I’m not sure Cindy agrees) was the suspension bridge where we had to watch out or have submerged shoes - no photos of that probably because i was concentrating on keeping dry feet. 

After a while we came around the corner and could hear the announcer, before realising that we were only halfway. So after a quick refill of bottles it was back out again this time along the mountain bike trails (please be aware you need permission from the MTB club to do this section otherwise all use will be banned and we definitely do not want that). The hills on this section, while not smaller, had a nicer gradient in that they didn’t just go straight up the side but rather switch-backed their way up the hills - a nice change for my legs. The trails took us out for a perfect view of the mountain, so the obligatory photos were again taken. Then back up the trail trying hard not to trip over my own feet. Really, the trail was awesome at this point it was just me being a klutz. 

Taranaki from out on the course

Reaching base again we headed up one of the steeper second half hills a little slower than before, but soon got extra motivation as we had a couple of super fast walkers behind us. Getting to the top of the hill we found ourselves confronting more hills that really gave my legs a work out. Come to think of it now maybe I should have used my wizard sticks (poles) after all. 

The trail then dropped down the back of the hill along some well grassed 4WD tracks and then down next to the river. We got a bit of a breeze happening at this point which was really rather nice as while I do like the sun it was rather hot and moving as we were was producing quite a lot of sweat. 

We filled up the drinks again at the 15km aid station which was nice as I could get a good long drink. From here we wound our way through a switchback type track towards and then away from the base and up a hill to the road. After running along the road for a while we hit the single trails again and kept a reasonable pace up until we hit the stairs which went up and up and up in a seemingly endless line. I’m told I made quite a face when I discovered the stairs!

The final couple of kilometres ran along the lake edge and then up the hill to where Alan the photographer was waiting. He told us there was only 900 metres to go and so we moved a bit faster as we counted down the distance 800, 700, 600 we were hoping that the count was right. About 1/2 a km to go Kelsi came out to meet us and encouraged me to put a bit more pace on up the last hill to the finish shute. I guess I was relieved to know that I was finally there and put on a bit of a spurt of speed and then I was across the line. 

Matt [Cleaver, the RD] congratulated me and I received my medal from Kelsi. From here I waited and cheered Cindy across the line about 30 seconds later. While we were relieved to reach the end it was an experience that both of us have decided to come back and do again because it really is a stunningly awesome course. If you’re thinking of doing this event sign up you won’t regret it. If you’ve never thought of doing it then get online and sign up now. It's worth your time and the road trip because it’s truly an awesome race. 

For the awesome support crews that will accompany you on your road trip there is heaps of things to do in New Plymouth and it’s vicinity. If you’re up for a decent hike there’s a few nearby on the mountain. So go visit the 'Naki and experience it all for yourself.

Have you ever run the Taranaki Off-Road Half Marathon? If so, we'd love it if you could say a few words by way of a Review on our Partner Events page.