Jonathan Wyatt reflects on his recent win at the National Mountain Running Championships
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Jonathan Wyatt lifts the pace for the camera
Shireen Crumpton won the senior women's title.
Photos by Gary Nesbit / Nesport
Event photos here
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When the mountain champs were moved from the Wanaka/Queenstown area to the Mt Campbell course close to Motueka at the top of the South Island, I was immediately keen to run. I now call Motueka home when I return to New Zealand and so, with it being held just 20 minutes down the road, I was happy to do it.
Mountain running has always been close to my heart since I first climbed the Black Birch Range (Blenheim) back in 1998. I haven’t been back to the National Mountain Champs very often since I am so often out of the country, but I can say that the Mt Campbell course is as challenging as many of the courses I have run throughout the world.
For the men it’s a gentle climb in the first 7km before really ramping up to head into the clouds and to the TV transmitter at the top. With Callum Harland (CYM Running Club) having trained well in the last months over Christmas, I felt he would be the one to watch. I like to set a positive pace and, as we looped and twisted and turned up the forestry road in the first 5km, he was staying hot on my heels.
Before reaching the women’s start line at the 7.3km point on the men’s course, I had broken away and was alone. With a sudden change in gradient at the 8km point there is a sudden shift in muscle groups and it’s easy to go from feeling comfortable and running at a strong pace to a slow grovelling shuffle. I find it best not to attack the first part of a change in gradient and so for the next three minutes concentrated on breathing and efficiency before increasing the pace again and finding that I could handle it.
I sneaked a look behind at around 9km and saw that Glenn Hughes (Scottish Harriers) had eaten into Callum’s advantage and that they would have a battle up the next 3km of steep climb. Knowing that Glenn would have been training on the infamous ‘tip track’ on the south coast of Wellington, and having done it a few times myself in previous years, I knew that I couldn’t afford to relax if he was having a good day.
I had been preparing for a flat marathon and so I was finding this middle section pretty tough. It drags on and on with switchback after switchback. We also started passing in and out of swirling clouds. Gary Nesbit was shooting photos around this point so I made sure I picked up the speed passing him! A 1km flat ridge line section gave us all a breather and I felt strong in the final 1.5km drag up to the finish with the luxury of looking back and seeing no one behind. Glenn Hughes ran a well judged race to come through for second with Callum Harland easily hanging on for third. At the top it’s a chance to see where you have come from.
The Abel Tasman National Park, Nelson and Farewell Spit/Takaka are part of the panorama and part of what makes mountain running such a rewarding challenge.
The women’s race featured a small but strong field with four athletes having raced at World Trophy level in the past. Shireen Crumpton (Hill City) seemed to really run away with it and had 2min 46sec over Melissa Moon (Scottish Harriers). Somewhere in between them however finished Anna Frost who was running in the non-championship race.
The Athletics Nelson organising committee of Eric Verstappen, Cliff Bowman, Debbie Lautenslager, Herman Van Gessel and Pat and Wendy Meffan got stuck in and made the event happen and did it with professionalism and safety. The local 4wd club was brought in to bring runners down from the top – many of them were left impressed by the speed of running to the top in not too much more than an hour for the men and less than 45min for the women’s course.
A prize giving in the late autumn golden sun with local wine as prizes and a spread of food that for me brought back memories of the interclub runs I used to take part in as a kid was a welcome way to wind down. The runners that made the journey to the top of the south left with many happy memories.
The mountain running community has never been huge and without big numbers when there is a lighter year it really shows. I think the way forward is to open the events up to all and promote the challenge of the mountain rather than championships themselves. The successful mountain races in Europe have the formula of building over a number of years, getting tourist facilities involved and promoting the mountain as the ultimate challenge. With New Zealand we have the terrain and at the World level over a number of years we often have the top runners over all grades – now it remains just to get the masses motivated!
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