The Crater Rim Ultra is a series of races up and around the crater rim of the beautiful and picturesque Christchurch Port Hills in New Zealand.
The event attracts interest from outside Christchurch and is a popular build-up to the Kepler Challenge in early December. Many competitors return for the challenge and the scenic nature of the course which overlooks both the Canterbury Plains and Lyttelton Harbour.
Here is Team FurtherFasters own Jen Halliday account from running the 21k!
"When Julz and Rocky asked me if I wanted to do one of the events at Crater Rim, I was like, heck yes! How awesome to be part of a local event, covering trails on my back doorstep. I knew I hadn't trained enough to do the Ultra, so I chose to do the 21km.....then quickly realised, that if its 21km...I might actually have to run the whole thing - eekk.
1st thing was to practice running Rapaki, I haven't actually run up the track for years, so that was a quick reminder to how brutal it really is!
Race day conditions were perfect, sunny, cool morning which was great, as I was soon sweating up a storm with the 5km uphill start to the race. Once I made it up the top of Rapaki, it was an awesome, slightly downhill cruise along the traverse track to the sign if the kiwi. My Dad had met me along the way and was yelling encouragement to me from the Summit Road, keeping my spirits high.
At the turn around point at The Sign of the Kiwi I was feeling strong, I reached to get my gel, to help get me through the second half and realised it was gone. I must have dropped it on course. Rookie mistake, only had the one...the second half of the race was going to be a battle.
Heading up onto the Crater Rim track was lung busting. Fairly technical track, with lots of ups and downs and also plenty of mud to contend with. Then over onto Witch Hill, another tough push! So happy to see Rapaki Track and knew it was all downhill from there. A nice long decent down to Hansen Park and yay, there was the finish line!!
I totally recommend this race, it is so well run, the volunteers and crew are amazing and it's a nice challenging course!"
If you are keen to take part check out the website here.
