The Great Lake Relay is an annual team running event over approximately 160 km. It is held at

Taupō Taupō (), sometimes written Taupo, is a town located in the central North Island of New Zealand. It is situated on the edge of Lake Taupō, which is the largest freshwater lake in New Zealand. Taupō was constituted as a borough in 1953. It h ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

on the third Saturday of February (not to be confused with the Great Lakes Relay held in Michigan in July). Each team consists of ten to eighteen members, either running or walking to complete the eighteen 4.7 km to 14.4 km legs around the largest lake in

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

Lake Taupō Lake Taupō (also spelled Taupo; or ) is a large crater lake in New Zealand's North Island, located in the caldera of Taupō Volcano. The lake is the namesake of the town of Taupō, which sits on a bay in the lake's northeastern shore. With ...

. With over 5000 registered

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

and

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

runners from all over Australasia taking part in the race each year, it is the biggest event of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. While there are prizes awarded to the winners of the relay, and $150,000 worth of spot prizes given away, most of the runners take part just for the joy of

team building Team building is a collective term for various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within teams, often involving collaborative tasks. It is distinct from team training, which is designed by a combination of busin ...

and participating.

Race

Qualifying

The Great Lake Relay is open to all runners and walkers, both

male Male (Planet symbols, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or Egg cell, ovum, in the process of fertilisation. A male organism cannot sexual repro ...

and

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

, of any age, ability and from any

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. For safety reasons however, the event is limited to the first 450 teams to complete an entry form, and pay the entry fee. The Athletics New Zealand 100 km Championships, and the New Zealand 100 Mile Ultra Runners Road Championships have also been incorporated into this event in some years.

Grades

Teams or individuals may choose to participate in any one of the following five grades. *''Runners:'' Running teams consist of 10-18 members. Each team member must run one or two legs. *''Walkers:''Walking teams consist of 10-18 members who must walk one or two legs. *''Composite Teams (Runners and Walkers):''Composite teams consist of 10-18 members who must complete one or two legs each. Legs 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 15 & 16 must be completed by walkers. Team members may walk or run legs 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17 & 18. *''Two Person Team (2x50km):''Both members of this team must complete 50 km of the relay course, consecutively. This course starts 5 km into the fifth leg. *''Individual (100 km):''Competitors must be current members of Athletics NZ to be eligible for the NZ championship title. Each individual competitor must start 5 km into the fifth leg, and complete 100 km of the course by 6.00pm of the race day.

Start time

The relay uses a staggered "wave start" beginning at 9:00 pm Friday night for the walkers who have an estimated team time greater than 18 hrs. At 10:30 pm, the walkers who estimate to finish in less than 18 hrs, along with the composite teams with an estimated team time of more than 17 hrs 30 mins begin. The rest of the composite teams commence the race at 11:30 pm. The first batch of runners starts at 2:00 am Saturday morning. These are the running teams who have an estimated team time greater than 14hrs. The final wave starts at 3:00 am. This includes the rest of the running teams, as well as the individuals and two person teams.

Course Description

Note: All distances are + or - 0.2

Event Records

The race organizers keep a standard time clock for all entries, though official timekeeping ceases after 6.00pm on Saturday. Course records up to 2007, are: Relay New Zealand International {, class="wikitable" , - ! Grade ! Winner ! Country ! Time ! Year , - , 100 km: Solo Men , Colin Oliver , Australia , 7:44:41 , 2004 , - , 100mile: Solo Male: , Yiannis KourosMakker, S. (19 February 2002). Relay records tumble. ''Taupo times.''Retrieved 18 March 2008 from Newztext database. , Australia , 12:35:48 , 2002

References

External links

General Reference

Official Great Lake Relay website

Course map

Sportzhub website

Photo and Video Stories

SportzVibes video from 2008 Great Lake RelayPhotos from 2008 Great Lake Relay
Athletics competitions in New Zealand Taupō Lake Taupō