END OFA RUN
The last Great New Zealand Forest Marathon at Waitarere Beach will be held in April
The axe is set to fall on arguably the biggest and most popular event on the Horowhenua sporting and social calendar. The Great New Zealand Forest Marathon at Waitarere Beach, which at its peak attracted 3500 entrants from all over the world, is almost a victim of its own success.
In the last 25 years, the annual event had grown into a monster.
Great Forest Events committee chairwoman Marlene Bonner said a key reason for the committee voting to pull pin was a lack of people willing to join the committee and help with the organising.
It wasn’t through a lack of trying, either. For years organisers had been appealing for more people to join the committee.
Bonner said the current committee of five made what she described as an extremely difficult decision at its recent Annual General Meeting.
“We’ve been putting the feelers out for a long while now. It’s really hard to get people involved in organising,” she said.
For Bonner the decision was especially difficult as her late mother Rene Steele was one of the founders of the event and for years was a major driver behind the scenes.
“It’s sad. It’s a hard decision because it was like her legacy,” she said.
“I’ve got mixed emotions ... I’m very sad and I’ll probably be crying on the day ... but it [the decision] is a little bit out of our hands.”
Another major factor in the decision was because the beach township was growing so fast they were running out of car parking and room to realistically host an event of that size.
Large areas near the forest that in the past had been kindly opened to accommodate all the entrants and with car parking were currently tagged for subdivision.
It had been a tough couple of years for the marathon committee. After months of planning the event last year it was canned at the last minute due to Covid-19.
Bonner said they were closely watching the Government alert levels with reports of community cases earlier this week.
The change in alert levels last week came with the realisation that another outbreak and change in alert levels could put the event in jeopardy again.
“Deja vu,” she said. “We’ve got 300 entries already ... so fingers crossed.”
Bonner said the committee was fortunate it had built a contingency fund and was able to refund all runners following the cancellation last year, although it was unable to recoup all of its own costs.
Meanwhile, for years the marathon event traded on the fact it was the only off-road marathon event in New Zealand and its popularity grew so quickly the committee sought incorporated society status.
It was originally started by volunteers from the Levin Joggers and Walkers Club. People would travel from all over New Zealand to compete, while often backpackers and overseas tourists would see it advertised and join in.
It was designed to cater for all level of runners with 5km, 10km and halfmarathon distances, and the cool forest experience and off-road tracks gave the event a real point of difference for runners used to competing on road.
The most popular event was always the 10km.
Bonner said the committee was fortunate they also had a huge amount of support from various community groups in patrolling and volunteering, and they were always mindful of repaying those groups through sponsorship.
The last Great Forest Marathon would be held at Waitarere State Forest on April 10.
We’ve been putting the feelers out for a long while now. It’s really hard to get people involved in organising