Hunt (20), a third-year architectural draughtsman student at Otago Polytechnic, won convincingly in 2hr 4min 51sec from Axel Reiser (2hr 06min 04sec) and Mike Wakelin (2hr 06min 36sec). Reiser was the first masters athlete to finish the course.
It was only the second time Hunt had competed in the race. He ran 2hr 20min two years ago.
When Hunt first joined Richard Barker's training squad as a 12-year-old, he was a plodder who was not able to foot it with his more talented and fleet-footed contemporaries.
His best times are only average: 400m (59sec), 800m (2min 13sec), 1500m (4min 24sec), 5000m (16min 16sec), 10,000m (34min 06sec).
But he has persevered with the Lydiard-style training and his eight years of long runs have paid dividends.
Barker steadily built up Hunt's training and he now regularly runs 160km a week.
He has a best time of 2hr 18min for the gruelling Waitati circuit he runs every two weeks. He has now run it 25 times.
"I'm pretty happy with the way I ran on Sunday,'' Hunt said.
"It was a bonus for all the training I've done over the years. It felt good to beat runners who used to beat me in the past.''
Hunt did not chase the front-runners in the first half of the race on Sunday and was in fourth place at the first check point at the summit of Flagstaff, and was in the same position on Swampy Summit.
He had moved up to second place at the top of Mount Cargill and passed Reiser halfway down the track to Bethunes Gully.
"I was confident then,'' Hunt said. "I knew that if I kept up the same pace I was going to win.''
He applied extra pace at the finish to beat Reiser by 1min 10sec.
Hunt's first major breakthrough came last summer when he won the Otago senior 10,000m title on the track.
Louisa Andrew won the women's open title in 2hr 40min 58sec, but the fastest female time went to Kaikorai Valley College science teacher Sue Cuthbert who won the women's masters event in 2hr 24min 35sec.
