Half Marathon Hub Weekly: Course Records, Rotorua’s New Half & Smarter Race Preparation | 7 September 2026
It was another busy weekend of half marathon racing around New Zealand, with runners taking on everything from the trails around Kinloch to the roads of Auckland’s North Shore.
We’ve got three sets of results to work through this week, including a new course record at the North Shore Half Marathon. There is also some significant news from Rotorua, where a change to the direction of the famous Rotorua Marathon has resulted in a completely new half marathon course for 2027.
On the training side, this week we’re looking at three topics that fit together particularly well: why trying to bank time early in a half marathon can backfire, how to taper so you arrive at the start line fresh rather than flat, and a 3x 8-minute threshold workout that teaches the sort of controlled intensity you need to race 21.1km well.
And with four half marathons taking place around New Zealand next weekend, there’s plenty to get through.
🏆 Weekend Half Marathon Results
Kaikōura Whale Run
The 20th Kaikōura Whale Run took place on Saturday, with the half marathon providing a very different challenge from a conventional road race.
Rather than kilometres of smooth, flat tarmac, the event takes runners through the Kaikōura countryside over a mixture of farmland, river areas and bush.
Men
🥇 Kieren Jenkins — 1:31:53
🥈 Jordan Bigeau — 1:34:55
🥉 Michael Calvert — 1:35:17
Women
🥇 Kate Woods — 1:38:52
🥈 Aimee Burnard — 1:48:58
🥉 Aubrey Stones — 1:51:48
Congratulations to Kieren and Kate on taking the respective victories, and to everyone who tackled the half marathon.
🌲 Kinloch Off Road Challenge
Also on Saturday, runners headed to Kinloch for the Kinloch Off Road Challenge.
As the name suggests, this isn’t a half marathon where your road PB necessarily tells the whole story. Off-road racing brings terrain, changes of rhythm and the additional strength demands of trail running into the equation.
Men
🥇 Jonas Kongaard — 1:33:38
🥈 Cameron Jacobse — 1:36:11
🥉 Jaspar Vowden — 1:36:59
Women
🥇 Mish Waylen — 1:46:25
🥈 Sue Crowley — 1:53:48
🥉 Jess Gamble — 1:54:51
There wasn’t much separating the men’s podium, with Cameron and Jaspar finishing just 48 seconds apart.
Sue Crowley’s result is also worth noting. She finished second at Kinloch in 2025 in 1:55:42, so her 1:53:48 this year represents a 1:54 improvement while again taking second place.
🔥 Ryan Surynt Breaks the North Shore Half Marathon Course Record
Sunday brought the North Shore Marathon and Half Marathon in Auckland, and arguably the performance of the weekend came from men’s half marathon winner Ryan Surynt.
Men
🥇 Ryan Surynt — 1:15:17
🥈 Roman Fosti — 1:22:14
🥉 Nicholas Gold — 1:25:25
Women
🥇 Kovo MacDonald — 1:34:31
🥈 Jen McDermott — 1:36:07
🥉 Helen Kilding — 1:40:37
Ryan didn’t just win.
His 1:15:17 established a new North Shore Half Marathon course record, bettering the previous mark of 1:16:10 that had stood since 2013.
A course record surviving for more than a decade is never easy to dislodge, so that’s an impressive performance and deserves some extra recognition this week.
It also continues a strong year over 21.1km for Ryan. Earlier in 2026 he ran 1:10:58 at the Waterfront Half Marathon, demonstrating the speed he brought into Sunday’s North Shore race.
Congratulations Ryan — and congratulations to all of this weekend’s finishers.
📰 Rotorua Turns Back the Clock — and Gets a Brand-New Half Marathon
One of the biggest pieces of New Zealand distance-running news this week came from Rotorua.
The Red Stag Rotorua Marathon has announced that its famous lap of Lake Rotorua will change direction in 2027.
Since 1977, runners have circumnavigated Lake Rotorua in a clockwise direction. But when the event returns on Saturday 1 May 2027, runners will instead head anti-clockwise around the lake.
Interestingly, this isn’t really a new direction.
It’s a return to the old one.
The original Rotorua Marathon in 1965 was run anti-clockwise, with the event switching to the familiar clockwise course in 1977. The 2027 change therefore takes the race back to its original direction after 50 years. Organisers say the change should keep runners beside the lake for longer, provide better views of the lake, Mokoia Island and shoreline, and place more of the field on quieter roads.
But for readers of the Half Marathon Hub, there’s an even more interesting consequence.
🏃 An All-New Rotorua Half Marathon
Changing the direction of the marathon has allowed organisers to redesign the accompanying NZCT Half Marathon.
And this isn’t simply the previous half marathon course being run backwards.
The 2027 NZCT Half Marathon will start at Hamurana Springs and head anti-clockwise towards Rotorua, eventually finishing outside the Novotel Rotorua Lakeside.
Organisers say feedback from runners had called for a quieter and more scenic half marathon, and the new route has been designed with exactly that in mind — offering more lake views and quieter roads and paths.
Transport is going to be an important part of race morning because this is a point-to-point course.
Bus transport to the start is included with every half marathon entry. Buses will depart from outside the Rotorua iSite on Fenton Street between 6:15am and 7:00am, and personal drop-offs at the half marathon start won’t be permitted.
The precise start-line details and start time are yet to be announced.
For anyone considering Rotorua in 2027, it also means that previous Rotorua Half Marathon race data won’t necessarily tell us much about how to approach this new course.
Once a detailed course and elevation profile are available, I’ll take a closer look at what the new route means for training and race-day pacing.
🏃 Training Focus: Stop Trying to Bank Time
There is a common piece of race-day logic that sounds sensible:
I’m feeling good, so I’ll run a little faster now and put some time in the bank in case I slow down later.
Unfortunately, your body doesn’t work like a bank account.
Imagine you’re targeting a 1:45 half marathon, requiring an average pace just under 5:00/km.
Race morning arrives. You’ve tapered. You’re rested. Everyone around you is moving quickly and 5:00/km feels remarkably easy.
So you run 4:45/km.
After 5km you’re more than a minute ahead of schedule.
It feels like free time.
It isn’t.
Running faster than your sustainable intensity creates additional physiological cost. You might gain 30 seconds early but lose considerably more than 30 seconds when you reach 16km, 18km or 20km.
That’s a terrible interest rate.
Feeling comfortable during the opening kilometres isn’t necessarily evidence that you should speed up. Often, it’s confirmation that you’re pacing the race correctly.
This follows beautifully from what we discussed in last week’s Hub about dividing your race into:
CONTROL → RHYTHM → COMPETE
The goal isn’t to win the first 5km.
It’s to produce your best performance across the entire 21.1km.
👉 Read: Stop Trying to Bank Time in Your Half Marathon
🎯 Half Marathon Tapering: Fitness Changes Slowly, Fatigue Can Change Quickly
Eventually, your half marathon preparation reaches a point where doing more training isn’t going to make you fitter for race day.
But doing too much can certainly make you more tired.
That’s where the taper comes in.
For most of the half marathon runners I coach, I begin reducing training load approximately two weeks before race day.
The first of those two weeks sees a significant reduction in training volume. Race week sees another substantial reduction.
That doesn’t mean completely stopping training.
Nor does it mean suddenly turning every session into an easy jog.
The objective is to reduce the fatigue you’ve accumulated through weeks and months of training while retaining your fitness, movement quality and familiarity with race intensity.
The important concept is:
Fitness changes slowly. Fatigue can change quickly.
You’ve spent months developing your fitness. A substantial reduction in training during the final fortnight isn’t suddenly going to make that disappear.
But the fatigue you’re carrying can fall considerably.
That’s why squeezing one last monster workout into race week rarely makes sense. There isn’t enough time for that workout to create a meaningful fitness improvement before race day — but there’s certainly enough time for it to leave you tired.
At that stage:
Freshness is more valuable than another hard training session.
👉 Read: Half Marathon Tapering — How to Arrive Fresh, Sharp and Ready to Race
⚡ Coach Ray’s Workout of the Week: 3x 8min Threshold Runs
This week’s workout brings us back to something that connects virtually everything we’ve discussed:
control.
The 3x 8min Threshold Runs session gives you 24 minutes of quality Level IV running, divided into three substantial repetitions.
The Workout
Warm-Up
10 minutes Level II
Main Set
3x:
- 8 minutes Level IV
- 3 minutes Level II recovery
Cool-Down
10 minutes Level I–II
Running Duration: 53 minutes
Quality Running: 24 minutes Level IV
The eight-minute repetitions are long enough that you can’t simply attack them and hang on.
Level IV should feel comfortably hard but controlled. Your breathing is elevated, conversation is difficult and you’re clearly completing a quality session — but it isn’t an all-out effort.
If halfway through the first repetition you’re already wondering how you’ll survive the remainder of the workout, you’ve almost certainly started too hard.
The objective isn’t to produce your fastest possible eight-minute effort.
It’s to accumulate 24 minutes of controlled, high-quality Level IV running.
Or, put another way:
The goal is to run all three well — not win the first one.
That sounds remarkably similar to good half marathon racing.
👉 Read the full 3x 8min Threshold Runs workout
📅 Training Plans Starting Monday 14 September
Two new groups of structured training plans begin next Monday through the NZ Half Marathon Hub+.
The Spectacle — 12 Weeks
The 12-week training plans for The Spectacle begin on Monday.
The Spectacle takes place in Whakatū Nelson on 4–5 December 2026, as part of a two-day festival bringing road and trail running into the heart of Nelson.
With 12 weeks remaining, this is the point where training can become increasingly focused on the specific demands you’ll face in December.
As usual, the plans are available at different levels so runners can select the programme appropriate to their current fitness, experience and goals.
Christchurch Motorway Half Marathon — 24 Weeks
We also begin our 24-week plans for the Christchurch Motorway Half Marathon, which will be held on Sunday 28 February 2027.
This is a very different race proposition.
The Christchurch Motorway Half Marathon starts and finishes at Canterbury Agricultural Park, with organisers describing the traffic-free course as fast and flat — making it particularly attractive to runners chasing a half marathon PB.
Twenty-four weeks gives us plenty of time to build the athlete rather than rushing straight into race-specific training: establish a strong foundation first, progressively develop quality, and then become increasingly specific as race day approaches.
👉 Join the NZ Half Marathon Hub+ and start training with a structured plan
🇳🇿 Coming Up This Weekend
There’s another busy Sunday ahead, with four half marathons taking place around New Zealand on 13 September.
Emerson’s Dunedin Marathon — Half Marathon
The 46th Emerson’s Dunedin Marathon takes place on Sunday, with marathon, half marathon, 10km and 5km events.
While the full marathon begins at Portobello, the half marathon starts from the Caledonian Ground, with all distances eventually sharing the finish outside Emerson’s Brewery.
Run Auckland: Millwater Estuary
The sixth and final event of the Run Auckland Series brings a half marathon to Millwater.
Half marathon runners complete two laps of the course, with the 21km race starting at 7:15am. It’s also the finale of Run Auckland’s 20th-anniversary series.
Sri Chinmoy Auckland Series: Race 7
Race 7 of the Sri Chinmoy Auckland Series takes place at Auckland Domain, with the programme including a half marathon alongside quarter-marathon and shorter events.
The half marathon is completed over multiple laps of the predominantly flat Domain course, with some mild inclines to keep runners honest.
We’ve already seen this series appear in the Hub this year, so it’ll be interesting to see whether any familiar names return to the podium on Sunday.
Whangārei Half Marathon
Finally, runners in Northland will tackle the Whangārei Half Marathon, starting from the Town Basin.
The route incorporates some of Whangārei’s recognisable waterfront landmarks, including Te Matau a Pohe and the Hātea Loop area, before runners make their way back towards the finish.
Good luck to everyone racing this weekend.
💡 This Week’s Takeaway: Control Creates Opportunity
There’s an interesting theme connecting almost everything in this week’s Hub.
Control.
Don’t attack the first repetition of your threshold workout.
Don’t cram unnecessary training into your taper.
Don’t sprint through the opening kilometres of your half marathon because race pace feels easy.
In each situation, restraint isn’t weakness.
You’re preserving the opportunity to perform later.
You don’t need to prove your fitness at 3km.
You want to demonstrate it at 21.1km.
📩 Get the Half Marathon Hub Weekly in Your Inbox
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The Half Marathon Hub Weekly is free.
👉 Join the FREE Half Marathon Hub Weekly
And if you’d like more than the weekly articles, NZ Half Marathon Hub+ gives you access to structured half marathon training plans designed to take the guesswork out of what you should be doing each week.
Coming Next Week
Next Monday we’ll have results from Dunedin, Millwater, the Sri Chinmoy Auckland Series and Whangārei, along with another Coach Ray Workout of the Week and more practical half marathon training advice.
Until then, train with purpose, race with patience — and remember that control early gives you the opportunity to compete later.
Coach Ray
Qwik Kiwi Coaching
www.HalfMarathonTraining.co.nz
