The "Longest Shortest Day" running event — part of the Crush the Cargill World Festival of Running — started at 8pm yesterday and was expected to attract about 30 participants.
Participants run up the mountain once every one hour and 40 minutes until only one staunch person is left. The event is expected to end at some point today, organisers said.
Event organiser Steve Tripp said the final competitors in last year’s event had run 100km, and conditions in Bethune’s Gully had been extremely cold and wet.
The event name was retained this year, and it still celebrated the shortest day, but it was likely to be over before the shortest day began. The winter solstice occurs when one of the Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt away from the sun, and will occur in Dunedin at 9.43am tomorrow.
St Clair Surf Life Saving Club chairman Cam Burrow said the polar plunge, which last year attracted 100 daring Dunedinites, would not be held on the shortest day, due to Covid-19.
The annual event, which has been held more than 90 times, was likely to happen in the middle of next month. It could not be organised at the usual time because of the uncertainty about when lockdown would ease.
"We want to keep the tradition going," he said.
Dunedin Astronomical Society president Ash Pennell said the shortest daylight length — eight hours, 39 minutes and 12 seconds — was only one second shorter than the daylight today. Monday is only two seconds longer.
People wishing to visit the society’s Beverly Begg Observatory in Robin Hood Park were welcome to do so from 6pm tomorrow.
Dark skies should make for excellent viewing and Jupiter and Saturn should be visible after 8pm, he said.
