When Kerry Uren broke her tailbone in 2013, the boredom of being unable to run was killing her.
She had slipped and fallen on a run around Lake Rotoiti, and in the midst of a two-week spell of no physical activity, Uren had a thought – she wanted to organise races like those she had competed in.
“I was only young and I was running like six days a week, I had three little kids and I was so obsessed with running. Then I broke my tailbone and I thought, ‘oh, that’s it, it’s over for me’ and I was so traumatic about it, thinking, ‘what am I going to do with my life?’,” Uren, who lives in Lincoln, said.
“I was actually a primary school teacher, and I thought, ‘well, I’m really good at organising stuff. Why can’t I organise an event?’.”
Uren, with friend Emily Bell, started Scenic Sports to organise trail running events, which were a relative rarity in comparison to road races like the Christchurch Marathon.
Bell, who lives in Rolleston, is no longer involved in the ownership company but helps out as event MC.
The Mt Oxford Odyssey, which started in 2014 and ran until 2024, was the first while a similar event takes place in Tekapo every year. The latest event, Run Akaroa was held 10 days ago, attracting nearly 1000 people.
Uren also has the The Mackenzie, a mountain bike race in Tekapo. She also staged the Rail Trail Rampage from Little River to Lincoln.
“I just love organising things for other people, it’s a real feel-good thing,” the 47-year-old said.
“Sometimes it feels like I almost have a meltdown before every race where I’m just like, this is completely unsustainable. And then you just remind yourself of what good it’s doing for everyone else, and it just keeps you going.”
Run Akaroa, which started on the Summit Rd and ended in Akaroa, had a 10km, half-marathon and marathon distances.
The men’s and women’s marathons were won by Bryon Mann and Frances Redmond, while Hayden Zervos and Lily Aynsley won the respective half-marathons, and Kotaro Nihei and Gemma Kostic the 10km races.
Uren said Akaroa was a place she had always wanted to hold an event, almost from when Scenic Sports was started.
“Since 2014 we have wanted to do a race there, and I just sort of sat on it and didn’t do anything. So it was really special, it was actually quite emotional because it’s been 12 years and we’ve finally done it.
“The community there have been so fun to work with, and it just exceeded my expectations. I think that race, it feels like it’s going to be like the next big thing, it was really exciting.”
Uren works full-time on her events and is supported by a team of about 30 part-time and volunteer helpers.
She quit her job as a primary school teacher at Broadfield School in late 2019 to focus on the business, just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020.
“It was so stressful, so depressing. You’d plan something and then there’d be restrictions on crowd numbers, all the different alert levels. Race Tekapo got caught up in that, Mt Oxford did as well, we had to cancel and put things off.”
These days the events are hugely successful. Race Tekapo, the biggest event, saw more than 2500 entries last year across distances from 5km to 50km.
“People love that race, we’re big internationally, and there’s lots of North Islanders who come down.
“We try and choose destination locations, it’s kind of our thing, putting on events in locations that are not necessarily the mainstream.”
Husband Stewart helps Uren with a lot of event organisation, on top of his livestock representative job at PGG Wrightson.
Children Lucy, 19, Jonty, 17, and Lachie, 14, are all physically active and into their running and biking.
“It’s pretty much our family hobby, the events,” said Uren.
“It’s a real lifestyle, we talk about it all the time or we’ll be sitting down for dinner and (Stewart) will say something, then we start scheming something up or going, ‘we should do this or that.’”
The family have lived in Lincoln since 2020. They had been in Rolleston since in 2004.
Uren said she feels a lot of pride seeing an event come together.
“They’re like your kids, it sounds so random, but it is. You put so much into them.
“Every time a race gun goes off, when all the runners or the bikers are out on course, you just get this feeling of like, all the work we’ve done, everyone’s off now, it’s like watching the birds leave the nest, you know?
“It’s quite cool.”
