In the aftermath of the great Tarawera DNF of 2023, feeling sad and sorry for myself as I cleaned the rock hard volcanic mud off my shoes that travelled 60km instead of 160km in the bathroom basin of a hotel room, I signed up for the Taupo 100k.

That motel just happened to be in Taupo and we were flying out of New Zealand the next day.

A few life things changed and were reshuffled and I deferred my entry to 2024.

On paper the course looked flat and fast, a “sure thing” to secure my second ticket for the Western States lottery my overly cocky brain thought.

I started training in ernest with my coach Ali in June.

The loud goal being to secure that Western States ticket, a 17 hour finish, the quiet goal to break 14 and maybe sneak into the women’s top 20.

The training generally went pretty well. It took a little bit of getting used to the structure and handing over a bit of control but nothing major came up.

I did a few lead up races and lots of long rhythm runs.

I felt ready to taper but then I also really hate the taper.

I managed to get through it without taking up a new sport, getting too sick (although there was a few kg lost from a stomach bug) and only bought one pair of impulse purchase shoes that I didn’t need.

Of course I obsessed over wearing my mask in public places and eating relatively well.

We flew out to New Zealand the Tuesday before the race on Saturday.

It’s a hard thing to gauge. We have been to New Zealand so many times now that on one hand I just want to go and race but if you leave it too late you don’t have enough time to recover from the flight and the drive to the race location. And for me, flying and sitting for long periods of time is not my friend

There was nothing to do race wise until the registration and briefing on Friday afternoon so I just tried not to stuff it up in the lead up.

Race registration and the briefing weren’t as smooth sailing than I would have liked.

In fairness to them, it was clearly peak hour when we arrived but there wasn’t clear instructions on the order of proceedings so it was pretty chaotic and frustrating.

I got my gear checked, dropped my bags, got weighed (don’t start me) and attended the race briefing (that was exactly the same information as the website). Even ran into my coach Ali at the expo which was so nice. I wasn’t expecting to see her there.

The race was due to start at 5:30am on Saturday morning so I went home and had my usual pre race pasta, more a safe tradition than anything to do with “carb loading”.

It was a point to point course, that advertised as 80% trail, 10% road and 10% “off road”.

Starting out at Waihaha and working your way along the Great Lakes Trail (a mountain bike trail), through some private properties, a bit of a suburb before joining the trail again at Kinloch as you make your way to the finish at Whakaipo Bay, the course is known to come up a little short on most GPS watches due to the undulating switch back of the Great Lakes Trail especially on the infamous headland loop.

But they say it’s 100k (or 70,50 or 24k).

A point to point usually requires a bus trip.

The race organisers had two options, either catch a bus from the centre of Taupo to the start and make your own way from the finish back to Taupo or drive to the finish line and catch the bus from there. I went with option B.

Everyone had their names ticked off the list and then we waited on the bus for about 10 minutes because they didn’t want us waiting in the cold at the start for no reason.

The bus was quiet and you could feel the humming of everyone’s collective pre-race nerves. Some whispered, others ate their breakfast, most quietly panicked in silence.

We arrived at the start line with plenty of time for everyone to go to the bathroom and label their warm clothes they had bought with them.

With a couple of minutes until the 5:30am start, everyone dothed their puffer jackets and awaited the count down. 5:35, 5:40, 5:45, and we were all still standing around, now visibly shaking or shuffling back and forth to stay warm. I’m not sure of the temperature at the start but I would be surprised if it was more than 6 degrees.

Turned out one of the other buses had had a mischief on the way to the start line, got bogged or something, and we were waiting for them to arrive, but no one told the rest of us, so we just stood there freezing our arses off.

At 5:54am, to a very nonchalant count down, we headed off onto the Great Lakes Trail. Well, we tried to. Putting 180 people straight onto a single track never works well, so we mostly walked the first kilometre.

This, whilst super annoying, is pretty common in trail races. No one seemed to bothered by it, and we all shuffled along in the dark.

The late start meant we would spend less time running in the dark at the start of the race and possibly more at the end.

The trail was super narrow and windy, an undulating, relentless mountain bike trail.

From the beginning, people were walking the tiny undulations, making comments about “being in it for the long game” or “saving their legs”.

I was stuck in a conga line for what felt like ages.

My anger and frustration brewed and bubbled under the service as I trudged along stuck in a conga line of people as there was no place to politely pass.

I was so mad at myself for not seeding myself better, but I didn’t stand at the back, the entire last bus was behind me and some.

I had a plan for this race, I wanted to run it, I had a goal time, and this was messing with my plan.

I psyched myself out for a little longer than I should have and then tried to “make up” some of the time by pushing it a little more. I know better than to do this, but I did it anyway.

I somehow forgot how much I hate mountain bike tracks. The relentless undulation ruined my legs early on and the first 30k felt like it went forever. No breaks, just the same beautiful single track over and over again.

I forgot to enjoy it and I got myself into a really negative, useless mindset.

When the sun came up over the lake and the head torch went away, it was easy to see why people say this course is runnable and fast. The trails were so smooth, “be a marble in a groove” I tried to tell myself.

Once I got around about 3 conga lines, I found myself running by myself for a little bit.

It spaced out really quickly.

The one smart decision I made in that first section was not going crazy on the fuelling. I made this mistake at Kosci last year when I overfuelled for the effort level and completely wrecked my stomach. I actually recognised that I was going slower than I wanted so ate less.

When we came out of the bush, we headed through a private property, a cattle and sheep farm, to connect through to a road section which would take us to the airstrip at the half way point.

The farm was like running through The Shire in Lord of the Rings.

The grass was insanely green and despite it being mowed for us, was not very short and hard to run on. The resident cows were very unimpressed by our presence. It was actually a really cool section of the course, strange but cool.

The first crewed checkpoint and drop bag location was smack bang in the middle of this farm. It was organised chaos, complete with milk tankers trying to get through and a paddock of baby sheep dazed and confused by all the people.

The volunteers were fantastic and quickly helped me find my bag and fill up my water bottles. The “crew” was no where to be seen so I headed out.

We followed some goat tracks out of the farm and onto a gravel road followed by a bitumen road for about 10k. I played cone games, run 3, walk 1, run 2 walk 2, whatever it was. It was pretty hot at this point.

My left knee had started to go (no doubt from trying to push too hard in the first section) and the camber on the road really hurt my ankle.

I sent a text to the crew.

Going down the road I got completely in my head. I had stuffed this up, I’d let the crap I couldn’t control upset me at the start when it was not that important and I’d cooked myself. It was the opposite of what I normally do, which is to go out way to easy and then fade, I’d done out too hard and now it was going to be a flame out.

Now I was really pissed at myself. I’d come all this way, I’d left the dogs at home, and I’d stuffed it up. But I wasn’t going to come all this way to not finish though, that wasn’t an option.

The “c goal” of the 17 hour Western States qualifier was still very much alive even if I thought my A goal, sub 14 hours and B goal, 100k PB (14:22 or less), had gone out the window.

The airstrip half way mark was exactly that, a mowed grass airstrip.

I came in and the crew was there. I wanted in and out, I wasn’t going to loose more time and I didn’t want to give myself the option of pulling out.

I got my food, filled my bottles and went to the loo, before begrudging storming out of the check point.

Thankfully it got much better from there. The trails out of the airstrip was the best bit of the course, a beautiful, cruisey, runnable downhill. I had found my mojo.

With one AirPod in my ear, I cruised to a bit of Tay and some random stuff Spotify served up. The Proclaimers “I’m Gonna be (500 miles)” was a hit for a couple of k’s. I felt like I had my groove back and maybe it wasn’t all as catastrophic as I had thought.

I’m not sure when but at some point I realized I was covered in white powder. I’d failed to secure a half empty satchel of tail wind and it was all through my pockets, all over my shorts and vest, oh and my GoPro. It was everywhere and it was sticky. I borrowed a wipe from a checkpoint and tried to wipe up some of the sticky white mess. I giggled remembering that video of Jim Walmsley at UTMB a few years ago trying to empty white powder out of his pockets.

When I got to the checkpoint at Kinloch, the last crewed stop and last drop bag, I tried to do some clean up, but I looked like the worst drug dealer in the history of cartels. I was covered in my own product. I used a baby wipe to clean myself up as best I could and threw anything that wasn’t essential, sorry GoPro, into the drop bag, wrapped in an equally powdered sweaty buff.

I swapped over my snack bags and headed out.

I’d beaten the crew again. I was pretty happy with myself actually, even though it was probably more to do with the rudimentary tracking system than my speedy splits.

The last leg was meant to be the hardest section. On paper, it has the most elevation and the scuttlebutt is that the undulations and switchbacks confuse even the most advanced GPS watch.

My race plan was to run this section. I didn’t come here to walk, but the left knee wasn’t having any of it anymore. Unlike its refusal to cooperate at UTA a few years ago, this time it was the up hill it took issue with. I couldn’t run on my toes, which made the undulating trail a bit troublesome, so run/walking it was. I ran every downhill and every flat. If there was enough momentum and it was short enough to heal strike it up the hill, I did that too.

I was passing people, mostly from the 50k and 70k, but I didn’t care, pass, gap, bury. Move forward and move fast.

I don’t know where I found the mojo but I wasn’t about to question it, no doubt being cranky at the universe was wasted energy I could have been using to run faster!

I had no idea about my actual pace. I did some basic runners math (never a good idea) and figured if I could manage 10 min/km for the last leg then I might get the B goal, but it was a bit MIGHT.

I was pleasantly surprised to arrive at the first headland aid station. The course map said it was at 82km, but my watch said 80km. Guess I’d magically ran a couple of extra k’s. I was in and out so fast that I didn’t even see the infamous boiled potatoes.

Between headland 1 and 2 was nothing too remarkable. There was some pretty views that I didn’t stop to enjoy and I ran mostly by myself.

I passed a lovely mother and daughter couple out on an adventure and a group of friends doing their first 70k. “My watch says 6 to go”, she said to me. “I have 12”, I replied.

“Well I’m only pacing but mine says 14, so that means I have 10 to go”, said her friend.

I think you could hear our souls collectively leave our bodies.

Headland 2 came right when I thought it was, maybe the watch wasn’t completely wrong.

I filled up my bottles, had a handful of chips and answered the cookie survey question posed by the two young volunteers who had clearly decided to entertain themselves over their extremely long day in the bush by asking every single runner to pick a favourite cookie from the ones on the table. I picked the pink 100’s and 1000’s one, but I’m not sure on which one was voted most popular on the day.

8km to go.

My watch said 10, 8 sounded better.

I kept plodding along, running when I could and walking when I had to.

I ate as often as I could, deciding early on that the black cherry Clif bloks were never being purchased again and the Pure lemon caffeinated gels might be rocket fuel.

With only a few k’s to go, the forest starting getting dark. I could see the sun still, but under the trees it was starting to get a little risqué for me.

I put away my hat and pulled out my buff and head torch. I don’t know how but the cables of the torch were so twisted and I just didn’t have the brain power or will to fix it. So I held it in my hand and turned it on when I needed it.

That damn late start was going to ruin my chances of a daylight finish.

I came out of the bush and it wasn’t as dark as I thought. I followed an open, coastal trail around towards the signs counting down to the Whakaipo Bay Reserve.

I actually really appreciated the Great Lakes Trails signage that counted down to the next major point as they tended to be the aid stations. If the finish line was in fact at Whakaipo Bay, I really only had a k to go.

I starting seeing more and more normal people, other hikers, support crews, you know, people who weren’t hot, sweaty and covered in dirt and Tail Wind powder.

I looked at my watch, it was closing on 14 hours but I had no idea how far was actually to go.

I saw two light posts up ahead and a bunch of camper trailers. “Not far to go”, said a well meaning random.

“Like actually?”, I replied, “is that it there?”

I pointed towards the lights.

“That’s it there!” She yelled back.

I looked at my watch.

Dude I’m not making this.

I pushed and tried to run faster.

My knee was not on board, but I told it to shut up, we were done being cranky today. It wasn’t that much further to go and I didn’t think it was injured, it was just really pissed off.

I crossed the finish line in 13:59:05.

Yep 5 seconds to spare.

I crossed the finish line and just wanted to sit down. Shit, maybe this is what it feels like to actually try.

The one of a kind Lava Glass medal was placed around my neck and I was directed towards the medical staff for another public weigh in.

I was pretty grateful another young lady passed me with 500m to go because I could sit whilst she was weighed.

Then it was straight home for the traditional post race two minute noodles and Hell Pizza and a very average night of sleep.

To be honest, it’s been a few days, and I can hardly believe it.

I thought I had completely shanked it, but I ticked off all of my goals.

• Sub 14
• 100km PB
• Western States Qualifier

Maybe I set the bar too low?

When I got home and started going through the stories my crew had posted and all of the messages from my friends and family on socials whilst I was running, I realised I was actually doing ok in my age category.

Turns out, I won the Female ‘Masters’ 40-49 age category. Perks of turning 40 this year!

If you have made it this far, and are thinking maybe you’d like to give the Taupo 100k a go in the future, here it is by the numbers. It’s a great event for a first time ultra runner, it’s small enough participation wise to not be insane, the volunteers are fantastic and for the most part, it’s pretty “runnable”. You aren’t going over crazy technical mountains but you still get the beautiful lake views.