Defending champions return for second Kepler Challenge crown
Nancy Jiang can’t imagine a better way to celebrate her birthday than a 60km mountain run.
Professional mountain runner Jiang won on debut in 2018 and will be back to defend her Kepler Challenge title, albeit on an alternative course, on Saturday (December 7).
“Either way I’ll be celebrating. It’s such a good way to celebrate your birthday, running the Kepler, I’m pretty happy with my decision,” Jiang said.
“I remember from last year how friendly and supportive everyone was, especially all the volunteers. It was my first time running Kepler and it’s by far my favourite event in New Zealand.”
Extraordinarily wet conditions and late snow has forced the Kepler Challenge organising committee to opt for an alternative route for just the third time in the race’s 32 year history.
Rather than navigating the 60km Kepler track, runners will run up to Luxmore Hut and return to the Lake Te Anau control gates, before running towards Motorau and finishing back at the control gates. The overall race distance will still be about 60km.
Committee chair Steve Norris said the safety of runners and volunteers was paramount.
“Anyone driving into Te Anau on Friday will understand when they see the snow and get an idea of how much rain we have had recently. We just weren’t prepared to put anyone’s safety in jeopardy.”
Jiang will be hoping for some better luck after a difficult season blighted by injury, illness and an ongoing tendinitis issue which forced her to take a month of training.
“Most runners have some sort of tendonitis, or something. It just got to that point where it was affecting my running and I just wanted to get on top of it,” she said.
“My key period of racing was going to be over in Europe. I was going to be doing the world trail champs and the Salomon golden trail series but that all kind of fell apart. I’ve had back-to-back seasons for a few years now, running in Europe and New Zealand and I think I was overtrained and over-raced.”
A win at the Valley Ultra in the Craigieburn Valley last month has given Jiang some confidence
“That was nice because when I did it, I’d only been back running for two weeks. I’m confident that I’ll be able to finish the Kepler, but how I’ll do, I’m not sure. I don’t think I’m a very confident person, I don’t want to count my chickens. I don’t want to have too many expectations, I just want to go out and enjoy the day and try and run my best.
Meanwhile, defending men’s champion Daniel Jones will also have to overcome a recent injury setback to add a second Kepler crown to his resume.
Jones, who also won on debut in 2018, has been battling an Achilles tendon problem which flared up when he finished runner-up in a 160km ultra race in China earlier this year.
The injury forced Jones to withdraw at the halfway point while trying to defend his Queenstown marathon title last month.
“I just got back from a three-day hunting trip in the Kaimanawas and it’s felt the best it’s been, so I’ll head down and give it a go,” Jones said.
“It feels so much better than it did at the marathon, so it will just be a matter of how well it holds up for the 60km. In terms of fitness, I’m not where I could be, but I did that really long run only two months ago now so I think I can get through it as long as the Achilles holds up.”
Runners in this year’s Kepler Challenge will depart the Lake Te Anau control gates at 6am on Saturday. The Luxmore Grunt, the companion event to the Kepler Challenge, is still scheduled to start an hour later.
