Come on, coach. Do I REALLY need to strength train? Running up hills is basically the same thing, right? Nope - it’s time to pick those dumbbells up, my friend!

It’s time to settle the age old debate once and for all: how long is too long to spend in an aid (or water, for my US friends who don’t seem to have ones that resemble a drunk child’s birthday party) station? Race through in 30 seconds? Put your feet up and hang out for 45 minutes? And how surprised are you going to pretend to be when I say the answer is “it depends”?

My Tarawera history is a mixed bag; I DNFed my first attempt at the 100 mile distance in 2021. I was entered for the 102km in 2022 and was going to withdraw over lack of fitness when the race was cancelled. I ran my deferred entry in 2023, coming in 17:41 for my first 100k race (having run the distance on a flat course in training) on the alternative 'loops' course (significantly easier than the normal route). I jumped back to the 100 mile course in 2024 and came in just over 32 and a half hours. For 2025, I chose to come back down to the 102k and see if I could start improving my result. I'd had a long held ambition to get my 100k time under 15 hours.

I've realised that what I need in a coach is somebody I can prove right. I want someone who believes I can work hard, who will push me to do the work, and who thinks I can achieve anything. For someone else, what they might need is a coach who tells them to just go out there and have fun. Someone else might need someone who tells them that run wasn't fast enough, or to give them a kick when they've skipped three runs in a row. 

If I had a dollar for every ad I get served by that annoying little algorithm for the latest and greatest invention to boost your recovery, then I’d have enough money to afford all those gadgets. There’s so many out there, and it’s hard to know which ones are genuinely helpful - and which ones are only going to hurt your wallet. 

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.

When I was a little kid, you wouldn’t believe how bad I was at running. I was terrible. I came last at every single race at school. I dreaded PE class (that’s gym class to my American amigos). I don’t know what it was - whether it was my scoliosis and my malformed hips, the fact I was pretty consistently quite overweight or what - I was just a naturally terrible athlete. Wonderful hand-eye co-ordination, so I was fantastic at sports that didn’t require you to actually have any cardio fitness - but woeful when it came time to run. 

But here’s the thing that people don’t tell you when you’re naturally pretty untalented - you don’t have to naturally be good at anything to be good at it. 

Sally McRae, 2018 Tarawera miler champion,  points out that everybody in a race - whether you win, whether you’re in the middle of the pack, or whether you’re at the back, we all have the same goal in mind, to get to the finish line. Later, she adds that if you’re at the middle or back of the pack she has a lot of respect for you because you are mentally and physically so strong - you are out there for longer, you endure more of the elements, you have to deal with a trail in a worse shape. Everyone in a trail race is doing the same thing. Just moving forward. 

Unlike most people, I don’t have any deep or inspirational story for why I took up running, let alone took up ultra running. Sure, on some deeper level I’m sure there is a reason - there’s too much crossover between ultra runners and people who have experienced trauma in their past, and with cPTSD I’m definitely in that camp. On some unconscious level, I know that it was about showing to myself that I’m tough enough to get through anything. But on the conscious level, one day back in 2011, I just woke up and thought “I wonder how far I can run”. I went out, and I ran 4km. (NB: This is not how I’ll introduce you to running if you’re a LFS athlete!) 

This is okay, I thought to myself. I can do this. And so the next day I went out and ran 5km. And that was it. I had a new identity: runner.