More than 650 runners took to the Hauraki Rail Trail on September 11 for the 2022 OceanaGold Trail Trilogy.
Event director Mark Sanson told The Profile he was “pretty thrilled” about the event’s return after two years of Covid-19 hurdles. “It’s quite exciting and we’ve had pretty good feedback from the entrants and we’ve got a bunch of new entrants,” he said.
“We had to cancel the 2020 and 2021 events but we’ve rolled all the entries over and I feel like we had record entries in every race this year which is very encouraging.”
Mark said the event, which first ran in 2017, was split into five separate races on different sections of the trail. These included the 55km Thames to Waihī route, the 42.2km Te Aroha to Waihī route, the 21.2km Paeroa to Waihī route and the 9km Waikino to Waihī route.
“Our most challenging event was the 100km we call the Hauraki Hundee where the runners started at 1am on Sunday morning and finished somewhere between 8am and 4pm,” he said.
“This year the race started at the Waihī Train Station and went through to Kōpū and they ran back again.
“One of the highlights around the 100km was we had a record ten teams do it [this year].”
In previous years the Hauraki Hundee route was from Kaiaua to Waihī. Mark said around 50 volunteers organised the event which included Waihī LandSAR, Thames LandSAR, and Paeroa, Waihī and Te Aroha Lions Clubs.
Runners depart from Grahamstown Station for Waihī. Photo: GORDON PREECE
