The ever-evolving Tarawera Ultramarathon will include a 100 Mile Enduro Run next year. Photo / Graeme Murray
The ever-evolving Tarawera Ultramarathon will include a 100 Mile Enduro Run next year. Photo / Graeme Murray
When the allowable time for a running event is 36 hours, you know it is a big one.
Since the Tarawera Ultramarathon began, organisers have wanted to include a 100 mile (160.93km) run. In 2018 that dream will become a reality.
The course has been drawn up and entries openedjust over a week ago, and already the Tarawera 100 Mile Enduro Run has attracted more than 100 entries.
"In 2008 when I started this race, I very naively thought it would take a year or two to set up a 100 miler race, but to put on a truly world class 100 mile run literally has taken an entire decade," organiser Paul Charteris said.
"We want it to be one of the best trail ultra events in the world. The reason is, the Tarawera Ultra has this awesome reputation around the world, which we're trading off, and we don't want to put a sub-standard 100 mile product in as part of that.
"The other reason is we have this amazing, world-class landscape here, the lakes, the rivers, the forest, and you don't want to put on a crappy product in a true world-class venue."
The 100 mile course will include some of the Tarawera Ultramarathon course, the Tarawera Trail Marathon & 50km courses and much more. It features narrow single-track trails, wide trails, forestry and sealed roads, forests, lakes, geothermal features and the city of Rotorua.
The 2018 Tarawera 100 Mile Endurance Run course. Photo / Supplied
"We've had a few overseas runners already who have said 'I've been dying to come to New Zealand for a number of years' and a 100 mile run is a pretty good way to see a huge chunk of the country in one go.
"The highlights include starting and finishing in downtown Rotorua - all of our Tarawera Ultra runs will finish in Rotorua next year. It usually finishes in Kawerau.
"Then there's the fact that it is a massive, colossal, big loop so you don't cover the same ground twice. There are eight lakes on the course, which is pretty epic, and you don't just see them, you're close enough to reach down and stick your finger in eight different lakes.
"It has been a big process, there are probably about 15 different land owners and property managers who we needed permission from. You can't push a course through without their approval and what you do on race day can't interfere with what they had planned already at that time of year.
"We're extremely grateful and we realise that, with large chunks of the course on private land, we have privileged access to these places and we don't take that lightly. There will be approximately 40km of tracks that have never been used in any event before," he said.
The course also includes a three to four-minute boat ride across the northernmost section of Lake Rotomahana.
The 100 Mile Endurance Run will start at 4am on Saturday, February 10 and the last runners will be expected to finish about 4pm on Sunday, February 11.
"You've got to be really fit and really determined to do a 100 mile run, you've got to want this thing. The mental side is a big part of that, we'll have pacers and companion runners for the final 40-60km of the course who can help keep runners in good spirits and on track.
"We're full on right now getting this all tied together, from a management point of view it's not just 60 per cent extra. It's 100 per cent more of everything that needs to be done. It's managing people over a very vast time frame, we have to be prepared for anything that can or could go wrong."
