For days now I’ve been wanting to put down in words what Tarawera Ultra Trail New Zealand was to me; the highs, the lows, the drama, the happiness. And now that the time has come, it’s tough to know where to start - though I suppose the start, to understand the context of the race, comes three years ago in February 2021.
This was my second attempt at the 100 miler, you see. I was a very different person back in 2021. Though I’d trained - I’d actually done more total running mileage for that attempt - I’d neglected everything else, particularly my strength training and my mental health. To top that all off, I was injured - I’d sprained an ankle during Kepler Challenge in December 2020, gone for a 10k and 60 minute run the next day, and had been too worried about being told to not race Tarawera to mention it to relevant people like my coach or my physio.
I was ultimately, even aside from the injury, not in the best place to race something so significant. I had gained a lot of weight without realising - and I wasn’t weighing myself so it was news to me the day before the race, and played on my mind. I wasn’t running particularly fast in training (that would be the weight); I hadn’t trained hiking at all, skipping or cutting short most of my hiking sessions. But mentally I was in an even worse place. I had recently confronted my sexual abuser about the thirty years of sexual abuse he had put me through, but I was trying to deal with that journey on my own rather than go through therapy. My parents had divorced and I was trying to emotionally support my mother - a complicated woman with undiagnosed borderline personality disorder - who didn’t agree with my running, and particularly not this race.
From the first step in 2021, I was in trouble. Coming out of Te Puia I was almost in last place very nearly immediately. My heart rate was skyrocketing, my pace was terrible, and I’d never been that close to the back at the start of a race. It played on my mind. By daybreak I was constantly in sight of the sweepers and panicking. I kept going, my pace dropping below what it needed to be to make cutoffs, but I was miserable. The worse I felt, the worse I made myself feel. Northern Tarawera Trail took an eternity; more than an hour longer than I had expected, and by the time I got to Rerewhakaaitu I was playing up how bad I felt, hoping that the marshals would medically pull me. I left that aid station knowing I was too slow and it was going to take a miracle to make the next cutoff.
However the next section was a long road section, and my ankle started to play up. I began to limp. The longer I limped, the more I noticed something hurting in the opposing hip. And then, at around 62km, I felt something tear. I could barely walk two steps from then without stopping. I made my way to Okahu aid station, pulled the pin, and cried all the way back to Rotorua.
When I got home, my mother took me aside for a talk. “You need to accept that you aren’t good enough to do this race,” she said, meaning well, but breaking my heart. “It’s too hard for you.”
I spiralled into a depression that lasted for months and culminated in me quitting racing altogether.
This is getting a little bleak, so let’s skip forward. My life continued to get worse over the following year; my mother was diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer, had emergency surgery that didn’t work, and was told she had months to live. I went through a terrible time at work and ultimately broke down, having to take two months of stress leave before losing my job. I continued to put on weight until I was at my highest weight ever of 105kg. And then I said enough was enough. I was the only person who could possibly turn it around, so it was on me. I went into therapy (well, my doctor more or less forced me into therapy!). I hired a nutritionist - the wonderful, wonderful James at NTS Nutrition, and joined a strength training group under the equally amazing Don Saladino.
Things started to turn around.
Here’s the thing about growing up with childhood trauma - it undeniably messes you up and sets you up for a rocky adulthood. Particularly when you grow up with two problematic parents. I was an insecure little mess, navigating life striving to achieve because it was the only path to being loved that I could find, never finding any sort of secure, unconditional love outside of my beloved dog, and believing every bad thing my parents had said about me. (If you want some context for that comment - once, my mother tried to motivate me to lose weight by telling me “how sexy” my father would find me overweight. Oof.)
What I needed was to find people to believe in me - until I could start believing in myself. And it turned out that in my new crew I had found it.
Through the course of 2022, I started to lose weight - quite a lot of it. I started to consistently work out (as in, something other than running) for the first time in my life. And I discovered that I’m not someone who is motivated by proving people wrong - no, I’m motivated by proving people right when they believe in me. I was particularly inspired by Don. Our challenges, though in a group session, give you access to him as a 1:1 coach in a way that’s scalable for him but individualised for us. He and I got to know each other, and I realised I had someone in my corner who thought I was something special - something I had never in my life experienced before. I started to race again. I entered the 102k at Tarawera 2023. “I’m still not going to be good enough for the miler,” I thought - but a 100k I could pull off.
Tarawera came and went without a hitch - unless you count the fact I finished ahead of miler cutoffs, let alone 100k cutoffs, and immediately started to think that maybe there was a chance I could return for redemption at the big race. By the time entries opened, it was decided - though the thought made me endlessly anxious, I would try the 100 miler again in 2024.
The training went off, dare I say it, perfectly. A huge strength training foundation with Don, and all the work James and I had done, set me up to achieve any training that my run coach Ali set me. I never missed a single session through the entire training cycle. Coming into the race, I knew, and said repeatedly, that I had done absolutely everything in my power to finish this thing. If I didn’t finish it with the training I’d had, then I doubted that anyone would be able to finish the race.
Through the taper I began to have all the usual niggles; nothing too alarming other than a persistent pain in one hip at rest.
I drove to the race, adding a holiday on both sides of race weekend in an effort to take some focus and pressure off ‘race day’. I knew with the way my training had been the only thing that could let me down would be my own head. It wasn’t an entirely unfounded fear. Through my teens and early twenties I was very competitive at sport - making teams up to a regional and very close to national level in two different sporting disciplines. But the problem I had was that I could never perform on game day. I would put too much pressure on myself to perform perfectly, and every single time I would fail. It comes back to the childhood trauma again; a buried-deep instinct that if you’re perfect then people will love you, and if you’re anything but then the pain will continue. I knew I couldn’t let that get me on race day, and so one of my strategies was to approach this as if it were just like any other race - just longer.
As race week progressed, my anxiety began to build. “This time in two days I’ll be at [x],” I constantly thought, counting down til the start line, the finish line, and everything in between. I did my last minute preparations. Through a stroke of luck my physiotherapist was in town to support her partner running the 102k, and came over to do some last minute work on that achy hip the night before the race.
I had calls with Don - he even called me as I was travelling to the start line. “You’re built different,” he kept reminding me - telling me that I was able to do it. That if anyone could, I could. That he would bet on me above anyone else. (He only knows two ultra runners - myself and David Kilgore of On Running. It’s still a little unclear if he knows that one of us is significantly faster than the other!!).
Before I knew it, we were at Kawerau awaiting race start. I had bribed Sarah, my chief support crew, into dropping me at the start line with the promise she could skip Okataina aid station in the middle of Saturday night. There was a bus on offer but I don’t do well around other runners before a race; I listen to other people, I overthink, I get imposter syndrome. None of which would serve me well in the big dance. So Sarah took me to the start, the iconic haka to send us on our way was performed, and before the nerves could catch up with me we were off.
It was a fast race start. I didn’t know the course; when I did the 102 we were on the flood-impacted course that began at Okataina. I knew there was single track and few opportunities to pass. I ended up in a line of runners moving perhaps slightly faster than what I should have been, but my heart rate was acceptably low and I felt good. Still, I was grateful when it opened up to forestry roads - and before we really knew it, dawn began to break. I was still jogging along and feeling fairly good.
One thing I did have a specific strategy for was aid stations: no more than five minutes at each, though I could extend out to ten if I was really suffering. I came into the first aid station following this to the letter; I came out just under 4 minutes, though discovering I needed to figure out how to fill bottles without spilling quite so much Tailwind. I continued on, feeling in good spirits and chatting to a few lovely runners at similar paces.
I was mostly by myself coming into the Outlet trail through Tarawera Falls; another new piece of trail to me and stunning running. I found myself passing quite a few people up the hills as my hiking paid off. Coming into the aid station at 29 (well, 31ish) kilometres I missed a tree root and took a fall. My knees were scuffed and bleeding, my hands were sore, but I walked for a few moments, regrouped, and started to run again. It wasn’t a big deal. This wasn’t going to end my day.
Through the next session I found myself trading places with a couple of runners and settling in for chats. One of these was Anna, whose coach is Kerry Suter - aka my coach’s partner! We had lots to talk about and the miles went by quickly; we hiked the inclines and trotted along on the rest. She was moving a bit quicker than me so eventually I let her head on and found new companions for a while.
It was quite a long section to Wihapi; it took us past the 50km mark. But I was still moving fine and starting to believe I could get it done. I was hours ahead of cutoffs, unlike 2021, and feeling fairly good given the beating my legs had already taken. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, though, and simply aimed to get to the next aid station. That’s how we get through this - one little manageable piece at a time. Kind of like life, really.
Just after we left the aid station the trail got truly gnarly for what felt like an eternity but in reality was likely less than a kilometre, before we were back on nice forestry trails. We were approaching the aid station that had ended my journey the first year; Okahu. It was playing on my mind, though in a positive way - I was planning to storm through there and leave it in my dust.
I came through without incident and entered the long road section that had been my nemesis on the first attempt. We were in the heat of the day at that stage. I wasn’t too concerned. Though in Southland we have had a fairly rubbish summer and I’d had more runs in snow or rain than I’d had in brutal sun, last winter I’d gone to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico for a fitness retreat with Don and the Challenger community, and I’d run there every day, including a half marathon in 33 degrees (and 98% humidity). It couldn’t be harder than that. And so when others started fading, I continued just trotting along - walking 50 paces whenever I needed to, then picking back up.
Rerewhakaaitu was the first opportunity to see my crew, with pacer Char dressed up as Loki. I later discovered they wanted to throttle me as I’d earlier sent a demanding text message for some sparkling water, kicking off what sounded like an impossible mission to find some - only for me to take all of a single sip then put it down again. Sunscreen was replenished, an ice block was consumed, supplies were topped up, and on I went toward the boat ride.
Small incident on the boat: I lost an earbud. I generally always listen to podcasts or music when I run; though I had two earbuds, the left one had not been holding charge earlier in the day and I was loathe to try it out when if it had any charge at all I’d need it for the night. It was a stupid mistake, but nothing could be done about it - and on I went to the Tarawera Trail, which held only bad memories from the last attempt.
This was a part of the race that I had been worried about. I remembered it as being impossibly hard; though I’d many times reminded myself that I was likely misremembering and exaggerating, friends who had run it outside the race had confirmed how difficult it is to run. This time, at least, I was vaguely in sight of people at all times - I even overtook a couple - but a combination of afternoon heat and 80km on our legs already meant none of us were moving particularly fast, and the leg felt utterly endless. A sign saying 12.2km to go on the trail nearly broke me; I’d thought it was half that.
Coming into Buried Village I was feeling a bit low, but my crew did the exact right thing. Here’s something awesome that was happening at the same time as the race: my Don Saladino Challenger crew were holding a marathon zoom for the duration of the entire race. They held the link open the whole time, with at least one person online at any given time (and generally, from what I understand, quite a few more) - running or walking in solidarity with me, working out, or dot watching. Char logged me onto the Zoom for me to see a few of my friends. Kimm - a super experienced half marathon runner herself - was on there and had many questions about Buried Village (“it’s like Pompeii!” she exclaimed, in a far too delighted voice for someone talking about death) - distracting me and making me laugh. It was perfect.
It was here too that my brattiness began. I’d come into the aid station announcing I was under hydrated and undercaloried and needed to get food in. I then proceeded to refuse, strongly, 99% of what my poor crew offered me. “No” seemed to be my favourite word. I would only have soup if it was chicken. I wanted an ice block then I didn’t want an ice block. Painful. These poor people who were likely regretting giving up their weekend for this spoiled little princess.
I was a little cheered up by the time I left the station. We were over 90k by now, and the next section was one I knew - around the back of Blue Lake on the road, through to Millar where we’d head out on Okataina for an out and back through the night. I don’t mind night running at all; I live somewhere with short days during winter and am fairly used to running by headlamp. But still, I was glad in this section when I met up with new friends Mitch and Bruce, and Mitch cheerfully enquired about our go-to karaoke songs. Thus, the Karaoke Train of Awesomeness was born.
Through the forest we started singing. Yes, Challengers - I brought back Stacey’s Mom from Doncon. We did a bunch of Queen. We started demanding requests from anyone we passed going in the other direction. We brought the cheer to the trail, and cheered ourselves up in the process. We came through Miller fairly close together, refuelled - I managed to drop an entire cup of boiling soup on my foot - and onto Okataina.
I don’t mind Western O; I think it gets a bad rap because of where it is in the race. My only issue with it this time was coming down to the aid station on “I’ve run 115km on these things” quads; a steep downhill, even with poles, was more than a little problematic. However I soon cheered up coming into the aid station - my pacer awaited me, and so did three of my workmates, bright and cheerful at 1:30am. Possibly on drugs. Who could say. We had some banter, I rolled around on my massage ball and downed a Diet Coke, and then off Char and I set to run out the night.
I knew the second part of Okataina would be a long one; there was an additional 3km (which I really don’t think we needed) and my feet were beginning to really ache at this point. I’d discovered at the aid station that they were getting swollen, but I had no bigger shoes as an alternative. It took a long time to get through Okataina, chatting away to Char (and occasionally being very demanding about where she run or what she talk about - oops - the veneer of being a civilised human was beginning to wear thin) - but get through we did, into the aid station where I took a toilet stop only to discover I could barely get my skirt back on over my swollen lower body. Wow.
Rhys J claims I was in a dark place coming into this aid station; I’m here to tell you this is absolute slander. I actually felt relatively chipper, just wanting the night to be over, dawn to break, and to be off Okataina to three ever-decreasing legs til the finish. Reports of my chafing at this aid station have also been greatly exaggerated. However Rhys is great friends with my coach Ali, and whenever I tried to talk about her, I burst into tears thinking of how much I love her. I’m not sure the constant crying too hard to get through a sentence helped my case that I was in a good place. We left the aid station, though my feet were by now getting far too sore to run on.
The soreness continued on the road section to Blue Lake; I picked up a little on the trail parts, but for the most part it was slow, painful going. We met a guy who I instantly disliked as he described himself as doing a “piss poor effort” of a miler. As anyone knows, I hate people disparaging their own performances - particularly when they’re performances that are the same as or beating other people. Remember this guy, he comes up again.
As we came around the back of Blue Lake I started to really get grumpy. I was in a lot of pain by that point, and even the fact we were almost 150km in didn’t cheer me up. I got to Blue Lake - Char ran ahead, I assume to warn Sarah about the little storm cloud that was incoming (I’m fairly sure I ordered her to do this to try and make sure things were organised) - sat down in the grass and proceeded to have a meltdown.
With big crocodile tears rolling down my face, I announced “it’s so hard, everything hurts and I’m not having fun”. Everbody struggled to not laugh at me. My performance wasn’t getting me the attention I wanted so I started crying harder. Sarah tried to look busy and not look at me, assumably for risk of cracking up. The poor lady sitting next to us (“enjoying the show,” Sarah later said) was staring somewhere just above my head. I aggressively stared at her with tears on my cheeks, eating a hash brown and wondering why she didn’t seem to care about how upset I was. I demanded that I wanted to see Loki. I demanded all kinds of things. It was, in retrospect, a real shame nobody had this on the Zoom - but probably good for any ongoing sense of dignity for me.
A discussion was had about the next leg and how long it would take. “Two and a half,” suggested Sarah, which irrationally annoyed me. I corrected her and told her it would be closer to three and a half. “Two and a half to two forty five,” said Char. Immensely annoyed nobody was listening to me, I yelled “THREE AND A HALF,” and stormed off to start the leg. I can only hope they finally got to laugh about how stupid I was being once I was out of earshot.
Inexplicably on the next leg, which isn’t a part of the course I particularly like, I picked right up again. I started moving a lot stronger, especially on the hills. Uphill was proving much easier than down; my battered feet simply weren’t doing well with the impact. As we came through the Redwoods Char and I were utterly confused by the course change - and to be honest, unhappy! It took us down a tarmac road rather than having us come down the infamous Redwoods stairs. Though the stairs were painful, being in the forest was something special and coming down the road wasn’t the same. That has been a magical aid station in the past, and the special feeling was almost totally lost.
For those of you taking mental bets on Three And A Half Hours-gate, we came into the Redwoods at 2:15-2:20 from Blue Lake, 45 minutes ahead of the tracker prediction, and absolutely nobody was there for me. I looked around, and - this is how much I was craving attention - deliberately made sure my expression dramatically fell, hoping that someone would comment on it and fuss over me. Nobody did so I ate a slice of watermelon and left.
Coming out of Redwoods, things started to get emotional for me. Anyone who has run home from Redwoods at Tarawera, particularly on the second day, will know what I’m talking about. People out on their Sunday activities know what you’re doing and know how long you’ve been out there; everybody cheers you on and looks amazed. I would sob trying to thank them every time. When I cried I’d set poor Char off.
And then, out of nowhere, my running legs were back. The feet still hurt - you can see in the video that the amazing Allan Ure took of my final 5k that I’m running very gingerly on the feet - but everything else was relatively fine.
We came up behind the guy we had met before Blue Lake. His pacer laughed about “what a flex” it was to still be running, and I joked it was because I’d just walked the last eight hours. The runner, however. He put his arm out to stop us passing, announcing he doesn’t let people pass him - I can only assume it was one of those jokes that falls flat when you’ve been awake and exercising for over thirty hours. “Well,” Char said cheerfully, “You know if you don’t want us to you’ve got an option!”
“C**t,” the guy muttered, as we ran on. I couldn’t quite believe it, and Char didn’t hear it - but it wasn’t the time to do anything about it. Just goes to show that not everyone is your bestie out on the trail, and it’s a shame. Oh well - we left him behind in our literal dust and trotted on.
The pace wasn’t fast, though to be honest, it wasn’t significantly slower than I was on the section either time I did it in 2023 - with 40 and 95k on my legs instead of 158. We trotted along, and we started picking people up along the way. Allan was videoing me; Kendall - who I met before the Revenant - came out to run home with me, and all my workmates were there to jog along.
Before I knew it, we were at the finishing chute. Char sprinted ahead to livestream the finish for my Challenger community; my workmates ran around to spectate, and Kendall brought me into the finishing chute. I started to get overcome, running properly, seeing Ali at the end of the chute, and coming across the line in 32:30 and some change.
I almost broke at this point. There were tears. I looked at Ali and admitted that I didn’t think I’d be able to do it. And I hadn’t, back when I’d DNFed. I had never believe in myself. My childhood left me with cripplingly low self-esteem, I’ve never thought of myself as anything special, and I definitely never really thought I would be able to do something quite this significant.
Loki, my dog, was popped (illegally) into the finishing corral and came barrelling into my arms; I cuddled him, I cried. My crew was complete.
I was guided over to choose my pounamu. I burst into fresh tears; this was a moment I had wanted so badly. For those of you unfamiliar with Tarawera or pounamu, it is a piece of New Zealand greenstone. Tradition says that you may not buy it for yourself; it must be gifted to you. The particular shape of our toki represents great courage, determination and strength, given to warriors who have undergone a great trial and come through triumphant. I knew almost immediately which one was to be mine. I looked at them all, but kept glancing back at mine. Finally, I picked it up; it was taken out and placed over my head. I had done it. I had completed the Tarawera Miler.
Even now, almost 5000 words into this epic, I find it difficult to sum up quite what this achievement means to me. I think often about privilege, and the way my background and the things I have been through have meant that in most aspects of life I start a long way back from the start line. I have to work twice as hard as many other people to achieve the same result. This race was no different; I’m not a naturally fast or gifted runner, everything I achieve is through consistent hard work, grinding away until I can’t help but get there.
My trial to receive this pounamu was more than most, but suffering is not a competitive sport. All the pounamu from the race were carved from a single stone; I feel forever connected to the other athletes who completed the race, whether they finished before or after me. I may never know their full stories; they may never know mine, but we’re a part of one another forever.
I am a changed person after this race. Coming into that finishing chute with friends old and new, work/friendmates, Loki, Ali, Char, Sarah, Ting, even so many people who had never met me but knew me via social media, and most importantly - a whole bunch of people (including Don) watching the livestream on Zoom - I realised for the very first time I am not alone. I was dealt a terrible hand when it comes to biological family, but I’ve built a found family around me that means a million times more.
But almost more importantly, after this race I feel I can believe in myself. It is something I’ve been unlocking since I started working with Don in 2022; the relentlessly positive American energy is something that I badly needed in my life and corner. But now, after this achievement, I finally feel like I can pick up where the external validation leaves off and believe in myself, for myself, for the very first time.
I feel unstoppable, and I can’t wait for what’s next.