Hey my name is Anthony, I’ve run 35+ ultramarathons and 4x 100 milers. The one thing I've learned about 100milers is that every time you run one its the 'hardest thing you have ever done'. I said it during my first one at TUM in 2023, I said it during Faultline in 2024, and I said it again during my solo 170km mountain traverse ‘8-peaks’ in 2025 But this 100mile run at Northburn, with just over 10,000 vert, I think this time I actually mean it. It was a day of hot temps, steep climbs, relentless mental games from the course organisers and great people. So heres how it went down! 

The race

Northburn 100 miler is broken up into 3 loops, all slightly different, and all start and finish at the same place:

1. Loop 1: 50km, 3000m+.
2. Loop 2: 60km, 4000m+
3. Loop 3: 50km, 3000m+ 

Each loop is a big run. One that you would do and feel pretty buggered for the rest of the day. Also the loop style format was going to be interesting. The idea of spending 10+ hours away from your crew, and then having to build up the courage to leave the start/finish to start the next loop was something I had not experienced before.

Loop 1:

50km, 3000m vert, 8.5 hours Loop one started with a 5km 'mini-loop' to get us warmed up with a ~200m climb to then pass back through the start/finish before we did the full 45km loop to round out loop 1. Loop one was all the things that you come to love about Northburn and a true ‘kiwi’ trail running race. ‘Aid stations’ where its a guy with two jugs of water sitting on the tray of his ute, steep climbs up farmland fence lines, beautiful sunrises over the mountains and long 4wd descents. Things were already getting hot by the time we hit 25km at the high point (already at just over 2000m of total vertical gain) so we were dunking hats in rivers, making the most of the 3km creek section and being mindful to manage my sodium replenishment as it was a long day ahead. At 40km after a 15km descent, I got taught a lesson about Northburn 100. ‘If its too good to be true, it probably is’. 400m away from the start/finish where I would see my crew, which I really was yearning for, they spun us around and sent us right back up a series of steep climbs, sharp descents into canyons with microclimates for the next 2 hours. As I would soon come to learn over the course of the next 24 hours, it never pays to get your hopes up. But after 8.5 hours on trail, now just past 1pm I rolled back through the start/finish line to wrap up loop 1 of 3. Hot, but feeling strong with a large amount of anticipation of what was to come.

Loop 2:

60km, 4000m vert, 11 hours Loop 2 starts with what the organisers call ‘the death climb’. Aptly named, its a nearly 15km long, steep in parts, and viciously hot climb from the base to the highest part of the course, Leaning Rock. At this stage I was setting out for nearly 11 hours, so my pack was full with 2.5l of water, 7 hours of food, and it was getting HEAVY. Now in the heat of the day, we winded up on 4wd track, before coming to a crossroad where I later learned we would come through on the 3rd loop during the ‘loop of dispear’. And yes - I’m not making up these names. This was definitely a low point for a lot of people in the race as temperatures soared in the micro-climate of the canyon that we were climbing in for 2 hours. For those of you that don’t know, micro-climates are pockets where there is no wind, and heat + sunlight concentrates in these canyons to result in a much higher perceived temperature. However, I made a lot of good decisions on this climb that meant I actually felt strong, and could fuel well by keeping nausea at bay.

1. Soaking my sunshirt in every creek I could. This meant I had a cold layer between my body and the heat surrounding us.
2. Actively monitoring my sodium state. You were sweating SO much. A couple of weeks prior at a Circl Health Catchup with Chris and Jordan we measured my sodium loss and turns out I lose about 600mg per hour. I genuinely think having a portable pouch of Circl Hydrate+ for an actual good replenishment of sodium that I could feed into my soft flasks on the go (not the diluted tailwind at aid stations) was probably the difference between a arguably very strong, and a not very strong section here. A lot of people were suffering with sodium induced nausea and weakness. Lesson learned. 

Thankfully that meant I got to the top in a good place, running strong in high spirits. Then after a classic Northburn section (the water race) where the main aid station, and your drop bag is a stones throw away and they send you down a steep, technical descent to the valley floor only to spin you around at the bottom and send you straight back up, I was at TW to get prepared for the night. This is where the low of my race came. After the long descent down to the valley floor (again) and then the climb back up and over Mt Horn, the vert and fatigue was catching up with my legs and lower back. But in these moments all you can do is focus on the next step in front of you, and grind out the seemingly endless 17km road section back to the end of Lap 2. At 1:30am I arrived back to my crew at the end of loop 2 at the start finish. Now 110km deep, with 7000m of accumulated vert, I took the time to get 20 minutes of shut-eye and prepare for what would be the hardest loop yet.

Loop 3:

50km, 3000m vert, 11 hours So there are two things to be apprehensive about on Lap 3:

1. The Loop of Despair - appropriately named, it is the most feared part of the course. After 125km and climbing all the way back up to TW, its a mentally torturous loop that is steep only to bring you right back to TW. Pure suffering.
2. The Bicycle climb - a "Are you f*cking serious" moment at 150km right before the finish line. It’s a steep 500m climb in the heat of the day. At this point no-one would be feeling good.

The first thing we did in loop 3 was climb all the way back up to TW, over Mt Horn to get back to the base. Now nearly 120km in, your body is definitely feeling it after also nearly 9 hours of darkness and being alone. I quickly refuelled at TW on an energy drink and some ‘breakfast’ as the sun was about to rise, and set out to complete the loop of despair. At this point, its just all about ticking off the kms, and not focusing too far ahead of you. This is the most common DNF point in milers, where you have seemingly so far to go but feel so bad. Focus resulted in what the marshalls described as a ‘pretty good’ loop of despair time. They then promptly sent me on the final up and back up to Leaning Rock, and before I knew it I was 140km in ready to do the 10km descent back down to Devils creek. By the time I made it to Devils creek, I was hurting. So the “Oh, you just need to go up over *there and its only 14km to go” earned a pretty straight faced reaction. The truth is about this point in runs though is that the best thing you can do is to just keep moving. Most people sit down, stop, but all you are doing is providing your mind and body with micro-wins when its screaming at you to stop. Diligence wins, and it is those that stay on top of their electrolytes, don’t let their fuelling slip that will bring it home strong. The best part was is that I was still fuelling strong, and had not a single bought of nausea throughout the entire race. This one, in comparison to previous races in heat, really taught me the importance of being more mindful with replenishing what you lose outside of just calories. When I saw that 5km to go sign after getting to the top of the bicycle climb, a wave of emotions came over me. From here it was a cruisy 5km descent back to the finish line with all the hard work being done. There is truly no feeling like crossing the finish line after 160km, 10000m+ of ascent/descent, and 32 hours of running. Its something I would encourage anyone to try and experience at some point in there life.

They say 100milers are like life in a day, and it is a truly unique distance in that you can experience such highs, lows, and multiple rounds of each. Your ability to get to that finish line is all down to how diligent you are with pacing, nutrition and hydration, with your ability to problem solve when things go wrong, and the ‘why’ that bought you there in the first place.

Haere rā - I’ll see you out there!

p.s. check out the FULL detailed breakdown HERE