What do you do after you've completed the Kepler and Routeburn Tracks? You do a half marathon up the side of a big hill. Well at least that's what I did.
In 2026 I decided to set myself the goal of doing a half marathon every month as a way to set a better base level of fitness. Sometimes it's a training run by myself or sometimes it's a race. In February I did the First Half and had some heart problems but set a personal record for that race. Since I was in New Zealand, I tried to find a race and ended up at the Northburn.
So two days after completing the Kepler I was at the start of the Northburn trail run to complete a half marathon. Funnily enough on the Kepler, I briefly managed to get cell phone connection and got an email saying "come get your bib or get a friend to do it". To which I replied "I can't and I have no friends". Turns out I think the email was aimed at the people running big distances, not the smaller distances.
The Northburn 100 is aimed at people who want to do a 100 km or 100 mile race, but it's still a small race. Gathered in a field by a lake near Cromwell the 23 racers got a pre-race briefing, which is basically "follow the flags, get lost and I'll take the piss out of you". It was a fun event.
Over the weekend people suffered with the large distances, and they threw in a few small loops for us less crazy people. Seeing people do over 100 km taking breaks from their loops looking so tired and beaten up made me feel kinda rubbish for only doing 21 km, but I that's fine.
I never went into this race expecting to get a personal record or do well. It was for fun. The weather was warm with full sun, no shade, and starting at 9am. The organizers said it was unseasonally sunny and warm. Also there was an aggressive wasps nest on the loop, so a diversion was up a really steep hill, yay.
Anyway with only 23 people in the field, it split up quickly and by the end of the first hill I was effectively on my own. People were in the distance in front of me... until they went out of view. And it just go hotter and hillier. My running coach and I had tried to find details of the elevation online and hadn't gotten a definitive answer. Turns out it was a lot more up hill than I thought at 896 m. And the downhills weren't too runnable either.
If you know BC, I'd compare this to running in the hills in the Okanagan in the shoulder season - sunny hot, dusty and dry. Roughly 12-18 km sof the race were nice and well runnable and I enjoyed that after such a long uphill and struggle. Even though I was by myself.
The diversion due to the wasp nest mentioned earlier, meant that I ended up short. What followed was me running up and down the car park to get up to 21 km total distance.
Summary
I wasn't going to get a record on this one and wasn't aiming for one. I just wanted to have fun and enjoy a run with some other people. The volunteers who put this on were absolutely lovely and it was a joy to hang out with them, thank you đ All the other runners were nice and supportive too. I even got a free cold drink and veggie burger at the end which was sweet.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out by a lake, sunbathing, occassionally dipping into the lake and taking pictures. A lovely day.