The annual conference for the organisation I work for happens to be in Queenstown, New Zealand this year and (un)fortunately it coincides with the Queenstown International Marathon! While my organisation has been concerned about availibity of accommodation and venues for the conference, due to the clash of events, I have only been able to see an upside - being able to start a busy week working at the conference (away from my family and friends) by signing on to run one of the events in the Queenstown Marathon.
Having recently run the Sydney Marathon and half marathon at Melbourne Marathon, and with a busy week at the conference ahead, I choose to register for the half marathon here in Queenstown.
The course was point to point, so we were bused out to the starting area at Speargrass Flat (about halfway to Arrowtown, where the marathon start point was located). This transfer was very well organised - I walked down from my hotel (after pre-fuelling on a banana, Up&Go and coffee with glucose) to the Queenstown Recreation Ground at about 6:30am and was able to get straight on to a bus.
Bananas were probably the biggest import to Queenstown this weekend! I had visited the local Big 4 supermarket yesterday specifically to get bananas along with a few other pre- and post-race supplies (Up&Go, chocolate milk and yoghurt). The supermarket had a huge stack of banana boxes and was full of people (including me) with 2 bananas in their shopping basket. The girl at the checkout wished me well for the marathon - heh, how did she know....
Glorious blue skies but quite cold at the start area, and had a bit of a wait for the 8am start, so I was glad that I had gone with a long sleeved top. The starting shute was seeded, based on estimated finish time and, while there wasn't a lot of race marshals, this was well signed with runners seeming to get into the right sections as I didn't encounter any problems with people stopping to walk, in front of me, in the first few kms of the race.
The course was mostly flat on a mix of road and smooth hard packed trails, which made it interesting. Started on the road for first 4-5kms or so, which meant the field could spread out a bit before we hit the trails. It was easy running so I was able to take in the views, which were spectacular with lots of remnant snow on the nearby mountains. The first section of the trail started with a steep downhill and rocky under foot, so I was very cautious of taking a tumble or, worst, spraining an ankle; but this soon flattened out to smooth trail alongside the Shotover River. The trail was wide enough for two or three runners, which was fine at this stage of the race, and I was able to maintain a good pace for the rest of the race.
With the sun out, I was beginning to wonder about my choice of long sleeve top, but there were plenty of aid stations along the route so I kept well hydrated and tipped water on my head and back to stay cool. Back onto road for a bit then rejoined the trail beside the Kawarau River. A steep pinch at the 9-10km mark was a real test, which reduced a lot of people to a walk, but I just managed to keep running all the way up but was blowing hard at the top.
Near Franktown, we joined the trail along side Lake Wakatipu and followed this all the way into Queenstown, skirting around the Queenstown Gardens, through the streets of Queenstown to finish at the Queenstown Recreation Ground. Huge piles of bananas, bottles of poweraid and water was available at the finish - which was great!
Fantastic course - interesting and the views were spectacular - and a really well organised event. My time was 1:44:26, which was not a PB but I was happy with this, as I had really enjoyed the run and managed to sneak in under 1:45 (which was kind of my goals for this race).
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