Sunderland on top in Buller walk

Nyle Sunderland battled atrocious weather conditions to finish top Nelson walker during Saturday's Buller Marathon.

Competing in the half marathon walk, Sunderland finished top woman and third overall, with recreational walker Garry Holz the second Nelson competitor home, placing fourth overall.

The day's fastest half marathon walk time went to Blenheim recreational walker Barry Neal, who stopped the clock at 1hr 51min 1sec. Greymouth's Michael Thwaites was second in 2hr 11min 4sec, just three seconds clear of Sunderland who still managed to beat her previous year's time by around five minutes. Holz recorded 2hr 16min 42sec to finish first in his M60-69 class.

Sunderland said the competitors struggled to adapt to the strong winds, hail and driving rain.

"I felt like my skin was being peeled off my face. It hurt so much," she said.

"I couldn't see as you couldn't open your eyes, people were running into each other and tripping up because of it.

"The wind and hail didn't stop until approx 5km into the race, but the rain kept coming."

She quickly became locked in a duel with Thwaites, both unaware that Neal had gone out with the early runners.

Sunderland pushed through the 10km mark in 61min, but Thwaites began to put some distance on her as they headed into the hillier part of the course. The situation got worse for her as she strained a groin muscle trying to make up some ground, but managed to reduce the margin on the downhill section.

With 2km to go, Thwaites was about 50m ahead, with Sunderland's fast finish eventually reducing the margin to just 3sec.

"In those conditions, to have taken five minutes of my last year's time and come so close to my predicted time [of 2hr 10min 36sec], I was thrilled. All the others were at least five minutes off their times ... both runners and walkers."

- © Fairfax NZ News