The Camelbak Big Easy: New Zealand’s Highest Mountain Marathon!
For my first ever mountain race I chose the 30km “soft option” for this event. Even though there was 13km less than what the full marathoner’s had to run, there was NOTHING soft about it!
At 4.30am on Saturday (25th January) morning my alarm went off. I had to make sure I had everything prepared properly from the night before and be ready to leave Cromwell by 5am. Camelbak bladder filled, check. Bumper Bars and gummy worm lollies packed, check. Clothes and jandals for after the race, check. Seam sealed jacket stuffed into pack, check. Brand new Icebreaker thermal on, check. Shoes…. shoes…. where are my shoes!?…. oh…. they’re on my feet already check. Did I sleep in them last night?
Being up before the sun does strange things to one’s mind.
We were to meet at the Albert Town Tavern to catch a bus at 6am that would take us up the Cardrona Valley between Queenstown and Wanaka to Snow Farm Lodge. Once we had zig-zagged our way up to Snow Farm, it was our last toilet stop before getting down off the mountain, and it seemed everybody needed to go. Because all the normal people had been hydrating themselves on the bus trip. I suddenly felt very amateurish. Being amongst all these fine tuned running machines who had all willingly paid to run up and down a mountain and were all enthusiastically discussing past Big Easy’s, what did I know about running in a mountain race? I wasn’t nervous but I did feel slightly worried.
None of this was helped by the fact that it was freezing outside at 1500m above sea level! The Thursday before, the event organisers were up on the Pisa Mountain Range marking out the track… in fresh snow! I’m not the biggest fan of running in cold air. It hurts my lungs!
After everyone had been to the loo (one or three times) we were set to head off on the bus to the start line some 4km from Snow Farm Lodge.
7:57am we had a quick race briefing, and then 8am we were sent on our way.
I set out to run my own race. I fumbled around with freezing hands to get my MapMyFitness app going, started some music on my iPod, and just plodded along at an easy pace as we zig-zagged our way up the mountain along an access track. I had a goal in mind, to run the 30km in 3.5 to 4hours allowing for the 800m vertical we had to cover in the first 10km, leaving over 2000m descent over what I had hoped was the remaining 20km.
This wasn’t really the case. As we got to the top of Mt Pisa, the views were stunning, and the track was undulating. There were bits of downhill that were quite technical, a bit of careful foot placement required which made it interesting and I was starting to enjoy it, but then you’d round a corner and be climbing again. I learned one thing: I’m not quite strong enough for uphill running. I just power walked the bits I couldn’t run. It was a bit windy up on top of the mountain, and although the views were stunning like I said, the lighting was terrible for taking photos.
Walk to the start; pockets of snow; my number; from the summit of Mt Pisa
My trusty MapMyFitness app spoke out every kilometre I completed. I like to know how far I’ve come and calculate how far I have left to go. But I got strange looks from other runners as I begged the app to shut up. I was sure everyone else didn’t want to know how well I wasn’t doing.
At the 20km mark there was a water station and it felt like we were finally on the descent off the mountain yet we were still a loooooong way up. It was going to be a steep decent! Which is was. Leg shredding, toenail blackening, almost soul destroying stuff. Big Easy…. cough cough. Maybe it was because I was only mentally prepared to run 30km because that was all I had decided to do, but when the ground finally seemed to level off, the last 2km to the Lake McKay Station wool shed (my finishing point) felt like the longest 2km of the entire race. My feet hated me, my legs hated me, my brand new Icebreaker thermal now seemed like a stupid idea. For all the full marathon runners, I have a huge respect for you. To keep going another 13km along the Clutha River Track after that monstrosity of a downhill run, you must be made of concrete.
Extremely happy to be finished.
My parents and younger brother were waiting for me as I walked up the last little rise and barely ran over the finish line. Official results haven’t been posted yet but MapMyFitness says:
Camelbak Big Easy Mountain Marathon (30km)
Under 3.5hours! Boom!
My 92 year old grandmother had also been brought along to see me finish and when we walked through Wanaka for some lunch, as I hobbled along beside her I leaned over and said “Granny! You’re walking better than I am!”
Camelbak Big Easy. Am I planning to do it again? You bet I am!
Until next time, thanks for reading!
Preparation for a Mountain Race 