The Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon and Trail Runs will return for for its 7th this weekend. The Foster family from Ben Lomond Station have taken over the race management and promotions and will host trail runners from 13 countries across New Zealand, Australia and across the world in their backyard.
The Shotover Moonlight Mountain Marathon has gained a strong following in the running community due to the diverse terrain, technical trails and ‘once a year’ opportunity to follow abandoned 1880’s gold mining water races, sheep tracks on razorback ridges, climbing up stunning waterfalls on ladders and passing through an abandoned gold mining tunnel, on the spectacular Ben Lomond Station near Queenstown. The race is one of New Zealand’s most spectacular Mountain Marathons. Exceptionally challenging, with over 2,600m of climbing and descending, along demanding single track this event is a must do for any mountain runner.
There’s a good mixture of home grown Kiwi and Aussie talent on show this weekend, so here’s a very quick run down of whom you could expect to see duking it out..
Ladies line-up
Lucy Bartholomew – A complete unknown in the trail and ultra scene…. hahaha who are we kidding 🙂 Lucy is ‘fresh’ off the back of a barnstorming run at the Tarawera 62.4839464kms last weekend where she ran the third fastest time of the day, competing with the likes of Vajin Armstrong. She’s in fine form right now and everything is working well towards a small matter of a debut miler over in the US around the middle of this year. Bar a mishap like not turning up, she’ll win here. My spies and sources over in New Zealand however tell me to look out for the likes of Joan Gaul, Dani Cazalla, Maureen Stachowicz and Sarah Davidson in the ladies race too. Consider them watched!
Gents
In the men’s race, 2017 champ, Ryan Carr comes back for more glory. He was fifth at the UTA 50kms last year too and looks set to make it two years on the trot. Challenging him however will be Martin Kearn, again ‘fresh’ from his fifth place at Tarawera and back on terrain he knows and loves best… mountains. Again, our sources tell us to keep the beady eyes on Aaron Jackson and Adam Clarke.
All the best to those running this stunning track this weekend.
