N°02 · Rotorua, New Zealand
in Rotorua. New Zealand’s premier trail running event and part of the UTMB World Series. Choose the T21, T50 or T102 and travel through native and conifer forest, alongside lakes and across Rotorua’s distinctive geothermal landscapes.
The course begins beside Lake Tikitapu, completes the 5.5km Blue Lake loop, then travels through the redwoods and geothermal landscape to Rotorua.
Official T21 CourseThe three lakes are Lake Rotokakahi, Lake Tikitapu and Lake Rotorua, followed by redwoods, native forest and the thermal landscape around Sulphur Point.
Official T50 CourseThe route runs from Kawerau to Rotorua past five lakes, through geothermal forest and beneath the maunga of Tarawera, Ruawahia and Wahanga.
Official T102 CourseWhy Her Trails
Her Trails brings together event-specific programming, weekly coaching, female-focused education and a community preparing for the same race weekend.
A progressive T21, T50 or T102 program built around Tarawera’s runnable terrain, elevation, likely conditions and the demands of your distance.
Bring your training, injury, pacing, fuelling, recovery and race day questions to a live group coaching call each week. Ask live or submit your question beforehand, with replays available afterwards.
Practical education woven throughout the program on menstrual cycles, perimenopause, menopause, pelvic health, fuelling, energy availability, recovery and injury risk.
Strength, mobility and recovery practices sit inside the training program. They are not treated as optional extras or referred to another product.
Prepare alongside women taking on the same event. Share the uncertain weeks, long run lessons, questions, progress and race week anticipation with people who understand the goal.
Practise pacing, fuelling, hydration, heat management, equipment, terrain, run walk strategy and race day logistics during the training block, before those decisions carry consequences.
A plan on its own is just numbers on a page. Her Trails turns those numbers into training you understand, support you can lean on, and a community that gets you to the start line ready.
How Do I Join
T21, T50 or T102, priced by distance.
Best value if you are training year round.
One package for race weekend in Rotorua, on top of your program or membership.
Her Trails · Race Weekend Support
Training gets you to the start line ready. Race weekend in Rotorua, covered in full in the package above, is where the training becomes a shared experience.
This is where the magic of a Her Trails pinnacle event shows up. It is Surf Coast Century crews swapping start line nerves the night before, Buffalo Stampede women already locking in next year because they loved this one so much, and UTA members trading tips and cheering each other on in the lead up to race week. You can arrive alone. You will not race alone.
Tarawera Through the Her Trails Lens
What the course demands
Tarawera's trails are mostly non-technical and runnable, which makes the distance itself the real test. Hours on feet, geothermal terrain and, for the T102, a full point to point crossing from Kawerau to Rotorua past five lakes and beneath the maunga Tarawera, Ruawahia and Wahanga.
Runnable does not mean easy. Fatigue builds through duration and repetition, not technical difficulty.
February in Rotorua can run warm, and pacing restraint early matters more than it looks like it should.
How this program prepares you
Aerobic strength built deliberately, and race specific long runs that mirror the demands of your distance, from the rolling T21 course to the full T102 crossing.
Run walk and power hiking strategy where it helps, fuelling discipline and heat readiness built into your training, not left to race week.
A program that respects real life while it prepares a steady mind for a long day on your feet.
Tarawera Training
Her Trails builds dedicated, race specific coaching for all three Tarawera distances we support.
12 Week Program
Begins 23 November 2026
Runnable trails, rolling terrain and the geothermal beauty of the T21 course. Builds strength, endurance and trail confidence to move with purpose from start to finish.
$300 AUD · or 3×$115
View Program20 Week Program
Begins 28 September 2026
Fast, runnable trails and roughly 1,150m of climbing. Builds aerobic strength, running durability, fuelling confidence and heat readiness, with sessions that scale to your expected finish time.
$450 AUD · or 3×$175
View Program20 Week Program
Begins 28 September 2026
Kawerau to Rotorua, past five lakes and beneath the maunga. Builds the deep endurance, runnable strength and trail confidence the distance demands, with mindset tools for a long day on your feet.
$499 AUD · or 4×$149
View ProgramThinking Through Your Distance?
Practical coaching insight to help you understand the challenge before you choose.
From The Trail
The ground does not punish you for climbing. It punishes you for running well too early.
Tarawera's trails are runnable, which is exactly what makes them unforgiving. There is no technical terrain to force you to slow down, so the pace you choose in the first hours is the pace that decides your day.
Choosing Your Distance
Choosing Your First Ultra
Not sure whether T21 or T50 is the right first step up. A practical look at what separates the two distances and how to choose with confidence.
Read the Trail Note →Choosing Your Distance
Stepping Up to the 100km
Considering the T102. What the step up to 100km actually demands, and how to know if you are ready to build toward it.
Read the Trail Note →Race specific coaching for T21, T50 and T102, or full access as an All-In member.
Tarawera Through the Her Trails Lens
Tarawera rewards more than fitness. It rewards athletes who can manage their effort, fuel consistently and keep making useful decisions as the kilometres accumulate.
What the Courses Demand
The Tarawera T21, T50 and T102 use mostly non-technical, runnable trails. That accessibility is part of the appeal, but it can also make it easy to spend too much energy early.
The challenge changes with the distance. The T21 rewards controlled effort and trail strength. The T50 adds sustained pacing, fuelling and durability. The T102 requires long-day management, strong feet, night readiness and sound decisions under fatigue.
Across all 3 distances, the goal is not simply to start well. It is to preserve enough capacity to keep moving well through the later kilometres.
How Her Trails Prepares You
Each distance has its own progressive program, building aerobic fitness, trail strength and race-specific endurance without asking you to reproduce the full race in training.
Pacing, fuelling, hydration, heat management, equipment and run-walk or power-hiking strategies are practised within your training, so they are familiar before race day.
The programming goes beyond the sessions themselves, with in-depth guidance on pacing, fuelling, recovery, menstrual cycles, perimenopause and menopause, injury risk and adapting training around real life. Weekly live coaching calls give you a place to bring your own context, ask questions and work through when to maintain the plan, modify a session or step back.
Evidence-informed trail running guidance for women, written by the Her Trails coaching team.
