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By Kimi Puntillo
The 21st century dawned on 2,000 runners crossing the start of the Millennium Marathon in Hamilton, New Zealand, the first sporting event of the next 1,000 years. The 26.2-mile race, located in the time zone right next to the international date line, gave athletes a jump start over the Rose Bowl and other traditional sporting events scheduled for New Year’s Day.
Mark Hutchinson, 33, from Auckland, New Zealand, won in 2:21:58, claiming fame as the first triumphant athlete of the new millennium.
“This is one I really wanted to win,” said Hutchinson of his eighteenth marathon victory. The father of three, who often trains with a baby jogger, also has first place finishes at the Auckland, Rotorua and the Fiji Islands marathons.
England’s Anne Buckley triumphed with a time of 2:43:54 to take the top woman’s spot in what was her first marathon. Buckley hit the wall with less than five miles to go. “I had an upset stomach and had to run beneath a tree,” said Buckley of her grueling race. “At one point the pain had me clutching my stomach, but I hung in there and got to the finish.”
Just past the starting line, Maori tribesmen, dressed in short skirts and full body tattoos, performed a traditional haka dance to wish runners good luck. Other spectators lining the course looked like they just got out of bed, wearing bathrobes and sipping mugs of coffee.
“Happy New Year” was often cried out to the athletes, racing under cloudy skies and a light steady rain, reinforcing New Zealand's nickname, "the long, white cloud." "Motor oil and rain made the roads slick," said Hutchinson of his 20th marathon. “Running in cool weather felt grand but made for slippery conditions underfoot.”
Runners also treaded uneasily coming in for the finish on several hundred meters of grass at the Waikato Racing Club, a local horseracing track. The marathon finish line was the same one used for thoroughbred races. From the grandstands, spectators consistently cheered on finishing relatives and friends. Presenters insisted on pausing the awards ceremonies to applaud sporadic last-place finishers straggling in almost eight hours after the race began. The encouragement often provided a second wind, prompting two runners to dance over the finish line.
Seven hundred Americans traveled halfway around the world tot his small city, 75 miles south of Auckland, to make up a third of the race entries. “This event is a chance of a lifetime,” said David Brust, a 58-year-old Milwaukee architect, “unless you live past a thousand.”
Runners from 45 other countries rounded out the field of athletes, outnumbering the Kiwis. Despite their small numbers, entrants from the home nation claimed the top three men’s spots in the race.
Two runners from Frankfurt, Germany, made marriage a sporting event by taking the plunge at 28 kilometers, roughly the 17-mile mark. “We figure we’d take 3 ½ hours for the race and another twenty minutes to get married,” said Doritt Barth, of plans with her fiance, Roger Detering. The 31-year-olds, dressed in white singlets and black bow ties, lingering longer at the ceremony, finishing the race together at 4:58:50. Barth, who ran her first marathon, credited her travel agent with the idea of tying the knot with an athletic twist.
I ran the race, bleary-eyed after welcoming in the new millenium at an extravaganza downtown with live music and a sea of white confetti and balloons. Staying up for the stroke of midnight amounted to completing the race with less sleep than it took the run the marathon in 4:44:41, with me swearing with every successive mile that I’d never run a marathon with so little shuteye again.
This marked the 10th marathon in the last four years, advancing from my first race in my New York City hometown to two Guinness Book of World Records titles for running a marathon on every continents in the world. After months of mulling over plans on how to spend New Year’s Eve, traveling to the South Pacific to test my athletic endurance with others who love an adventure proved a worthy way to ring in the next 1,000 years.