At 24 years old, Juliette moved 7,000 miles away from home seeking adventure. Where she found herself three months later was running 21.1km through Hobbiton, the movie set for her favourite films, The Lord of the Rings. 

 

Over the past year, I’ve had multiple people tell me about an event in which runners race through the actual movie set for The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit. Dressed as hobbits, elves, or wizards, people run the Middle-Earth Halfling Marathon through Hobbiton, located on the breathtaking New Zealand North Island.

 

 

As someone who grew up watching and reading LOTR, the idea of getting to run a half marathon through this playground seemed too good an opportunity to miss – a race combining my dorkiness and love for running.

When I decided to move across the globe from my home in California to Sydney, Australia, I felt an intense mix of overwhelm and excitement. One day in my first weeks abroad, I decided to book an adventure. I recalled the Middle-Earth Halfling Marathon…

The race is run in March of every year, just three months after I’d first arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, and a four-hour flight from Sydney. As JRR Tolkien wrote, ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to’.

I booked a race entry that day.

The morning of the race, I boarded a Hobbiton tour bus playing the LOTR soundtrack. Tears welled in my eyes as I sat surrounded by 50 strangers, all of us collectively there to visit a fantasy land.

 

Few things make me cry, but watching people run marathons is one of them and the introduction in The Fellowship of the Ring, where Frodo sits reading while ‘The Shire’ soundtrack plays, is another.

We arrived at the start of the race, where I collected my bib and watched as a bunch of adults made final adjustments to their costumes. At 2pm, the starter buzzed. I ran up and down rolling hillsides, dodging Uruk-hai as well as the odd sheep. 

 

 

I kept repeating to myself Sam’s iconic line, ‘If I go one more step, this’ll be the farthest from home I’ve ever been’. This line isn’t just reserved for LOTR-themed races; it’s a continuous mantra for me, particularly as I continue running longer distances and further away from home. 

I’d run 21.1km (or 13.1 miles) countless times before, but getting to do so on the other side of the world, so far from where I fell in love with running, was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

Signs reading ‘Fly, you fools!’ were posted at major benchmarks. We passed a swimming hole, where brave runners jumped in before continuing on, and then we ran in and out of Hobbiton itself, peering into the little homes (even smaller than I’d imagined!). I smiled the whole way, running by the fictional world that’ll always be my dream landscape of where I want to spend the rest of my days. 

 

Two miles from the finish line, I stopped by the Green Dragon Inn, necking a pint with two fellow runners before running the final miles of the race, my dehydrated body crying out in dismay. I was the 2nd female finisher, coming across the line with a friend decked out in elven ears. 

After receiving my finishers medal, I noticed a man in a cloak tucked into the hillside with a pipe in hand. It felt as if any of the four little hobbits were there right in front of me, especially as he continuously shouted ‘For Frodo!’ at the finishing runners, many of whom raised a fist and shouted a resounding agreement. 

I spoke with some finishers, including one woman who’d postponed this honeymoon trip for five years due to Covid. Another solo traveller had flown all the way from Colorado just for this race, keen to feed into her nerd-dom in a way that none of her friends understood.

It brought to light how special the day was, emulating Gandalf’s words: ‘All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us’. 

I was rewarded for my podium finish with my name being announced by Gimli and a finish line interview with Gandalf. What a day! I certainly did go ‘there and back again’, and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

 

 

Race photos supplied

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