The organiser of the 24-hour endurance race, Steve Tripp, said every time the race was held, the 680m-high peak was flattened a little further under runners’ footsteps.
"So just keep coming back, and in a million years it’ll be really easy."
Dunedin’s Chris Bisley completed 18 laps of the 8.5km Bethunes Gully to Mt Cargill track in the fourth year of races up and down the volcanic outcrop at the weekend.
This time, eight people from the starting field completed 12 laps, considered hitting par for the course, Mr Tripp said.
He was surprised people kept turning up for the gruelling endurance race, but they did, and they enjoyed it,Mr Tripp, who one year completed 12 laps himself, said.
From 10am on Saturday about 90 runners took to the track and had 24 hours to complete as many laps as they could before 10am yesterday.
"For race start we just say ‘Get away, go off’ and 80 or 90 people start running, and there’s dogs all over the place and kids running around, so yeah, it is anarchic," he said.
Further, the Crush the Cargill trophy, "The Twig", was unlikely ever to be won.
However, yesterday, the trophy was instead loaned to Mr Bisley for setting the new race record of 18 laps.
Mr Bisley, who completed 17 laps in his first attempt at Crush the Cargill, returned this year to up the stakes.
A gym team leader at Moana Pool, Mr Bisley said he would return again next year if he was in the city on the day of the race.
A Jack Russell-bearded collie mix, Scruffy, was awarded a sausage after winning the dog category for a second time. Scruffy completed six laps with his owner, Kat Lilly.
