02/25/2026
BITTER SWEET! It has been a bit since I wrote a race report- “The good the bad and the ugly.” I have raced long enough to know every race has a story. The What If’s, the Could have Should have & all the in between finalizing in the Actually what went down. 🤪 Let’s start with the lead in. I have been micro managing a hip issue for over a year now. It’s so weird. Some days are great, some I can’t even run. The pain moves. I was hopeful leading in to Tarawera. I did what I could. Massage, chiro, less running than I wanted to do heading in to my first Ultra. But I was content. I knew it would be hard. We landed Tuesday. Wed/Thurs shake out runs I couldn’t even run. Tears welled up. The pectineus flared. Meaning if I stopped for a second it would seize. 5 min of 10/10 pain to move again. I knew an ultra is constant changing in speeds. I honestly had no alternative but to take some paracetamol! I researched what is safe and asked others. I am not one to take any form of pain killers ever as I am a naturalist. But I have been wanting to do this for over a year. The flight, the expenses, the buildup. It was a do or die kinda race. 🤪 The pain was bearable under paracetamol, so I was hopeful, but then what happened?? Was it the high humidity through the geo thermals. Was it side effects of drugs- I found I couldn’t breathe, my HR was off the charts, and I couldn’t find any rhythm. I kept slowing to try and adapt, normally 10-12 miles is my comfort zone before things derail. I was 20k in before I grasped any sense of comfort. It’s a long race but the word race disappeared out of my frame of thought as I embraced the adventure of the “never will I forget this adventure” of the slip and slide race. The frustration turned into let’s play. Time of finish didn’t matter anymore- it was let’s just put one foot in front of the other and try not to fall.😬🤪 The laughter of people everywhere. The sound of mud under our feet. The helping others up when we fell. The aid stations I got to soak in because I was just on a journey. My thoughts of Ultras are such a different feeling. I loved it. I needed it. Con’t in comments.
