New Zealand's Iconic Mountain Running Races

My picks for the top 5 Classic Mountain Races in New Zealand

After some recent discussions about what are New Zealand’s pinnacle Mountain races I thought I’d put a list together. With some simple ground rules:

1. The race should be defined by one or two major climbs not rolling terrain of continuous up and down movements

2. Ballpark the distance of the event should be up to or around 20k, with an average uphill grade of >10% for the climbs and >5% (gross) overall

3. You should be able to comfortably run the race without a pack or poles

1. Vosseler Shield (10km, 398m+/-)

Vosseler is one of those races that always seems to find a way to take place on Wellington’s coldest, rainiest and muddiest day of the year. They breed Wellington runners tough for days like these though, and it shows with the strong numbers the event pulls every year. With 101 years of history dating back to 1923, the event has been held every year during that time; one being during WW2 in 1942 and the other 2020 in the middle of the Covid pandemic. Voseeler even predates organised international mountain running by 61 years, however once the rest of the world had caught up Mt Victoria (albeit not an exact replica of the Vosseler course) had the distinction of being the home to the 2005 World Mountain Running Championships. The organisers describe Vosseler as a cross country race, but it is certainly a mountain hybrid with a combination of steep grinding climb and flatter runnable sections. While the event honours board reads as a who’s who of Mountain Running lore including Melissa Moon (13 times winner), Kate McIlroy (2 times winner) and Jonathan Wyatt (2 times winner) along with countless New Zealand Mountain Running representatives, making it the most storied of all New Zealand mountain races.

2. Mauao King and Queen of The Mountain (4.2km 250m+/-)

Call it hometown bias, call it what you want, but the Mauao race is without doubt one of New Zealand’s Mountain running icons. Like the Vosseler, Mauao King and Queen has a long and colorful history stretching 77 Years strong. The event could best described as a ‘Mountain Sprint’ taking place over a short course of just 4.2km and 250m +/-. Once you’re off the 700m of soft sand of the Mount Maunganui surf beach the only piece of slow grind is the long stairs about 3/4 of the way up the climb to the summit. The descent is nothing like the good old days, when runners would snowball down the slopes anyway they could find with the best doing so in under 3 minutes. Today the most technical part of the descent is down the historic stone steps, which are uneven and rocky. This leads you back to the final 700m beach sprint a truly one of a kind feature in the sport of Mountain Running. Recently the event has been moved away from its traditional boxing day fixture to April (21st for 2024), both in an attempt to give the volunteers a good summer holiday and carve out a specific ‘Mountain Running season’.

3. Te Mata Trail Mountain Blazer (12km, 433m+/-)

I’m calling for a rebrand of this event’s name from the ‘trail blazer’ to the ‘mountain blazer’ as the word trail could not be more misleading for perhaps New Zealand’s best true old school up/down Mountain Race. With just 12 years it is one of the youngest races on this list, but with strong community backing in Havelock North it is surely a race with a lot of mana and strong prospects for the future. A brief bit of Strava research shows that there are several brief sharp climbs of 20 and 25% grade, but that it is mostly fast with a few technical features, and a considerable amount of the 12km distance takes place on road. Eric Speakman’s 3:54/km and Ruby Muir’s 4:25/km overall pace for the respective Strava segment records shows there is no truly rough nasty stuff in the course. The event took a hiatus after the devastating effects of Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023, but looks to be back bigger than ever for November 2024.

4. Luxmore Grunt (27km, 1,074m+/-)

Luxmore straddles the line between trail race and pure mountain race particularly given it’s distance and some of its terrain rolly terrain. Due to its well maintained DOC track the course has been given the nicknames ‘the red carpet’ or ‘rolls royce’ of trails. The race is however devilishly hard to pace and has punishing combos of flat to steep up and steep down to flat to keep your quads working all event long. If not for some hairy moments barrelling towards ascending competitors on a narrow boardwalk this could be higher on the list.

5. Shotover Moonlight VK (3.8km, 1,180m+)

No list of mountain races in New Zealand would be complete without a visit to Central Otago the mecca of mountain and trail. To the best of my knowledge the Shotover Moonlight is New Zealand’s only current regular pure uphill or vertical mountain race. From Moke Lake tracking up to the Ben Lomond Summit just outside of Queenstown, two words could be used to describe this race steep and unrelenting. This year the event has the honour of being a qualifying race for the Skyrunning World Championships. Definitely a race I would love to get down for, unfortunately this year it overlaps with the Tarawera Ultra Trail event.

Honorable Mentions

Mt Oxford Vertical Challenge (15km, 1,000m+/-)

Sadly the organisers of the Mt Oxford Odyssey Festival (taking place about 1hr Northwest of Christchurch) have indicated this year will be the last year of the event with the end of their 10 year DOC concession. As an innovation for this year they have introduced what they are calling a vertical challenge, which is not a vertical challenge as it’s an up/down but nonetheless it looks to be an exciting race for all those taking part.

The Wild - Beast of Brow (11km 1050m+/-)

Arrowtown is the host to The Wild trail festival encompassing an array of different events, the Beast of Brow being the purest Mountain run of the lot with a vertical kilometre type uphill structure and a burning downhill run to the finish. Taking place on rocky single trails and ridgelines, this will be one for specialist technical runners. The event has had a contentious history with the previous event manager going into liquidation, but hopefully with new management in place the event is in a better place to build and thrive.