Running Hot

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Do not be content with half measures for halfway is as close to the bottom as it is to the top

Up until now I’d never competed in New Zealand. I’d done all my ultramarathons in the desert or in Europe. It was time to throw myself into the Kiwi scene and see how I measured up. One of the first races I decided to compete in was the 2007 24 Hour National Championships. They were due to be held at the Sovereign Stadium on Auckland’s North Shore on 12 October.

The championships are organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team. The team organise ultra-running races all over the world and have been real pioneers in the sport of ultramarathons. They organise the races on the principle of self-transcendence, which basically means that runners should compete against themselves rather than other runners in order to gain greater insights into themselves.

Sri Chinmoy, who was the motivating force behind the organisation, was an Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher. He was famous for holding public events around the world on the themes of world harmony and inner peace. He taught many people to meditate and always preached tolerance and love.

Sadly, the day before the race on 11 October 2007, Sri Chinmoy passed away. Naturally his followers, mourning their leader’s death, cancelled the race just hours before it was due to start. I had arrived in Auckland the day before with my support team — Mum, Cousin James and Dad’s mate, Greg Edley — in tow. I had trained hard and was amped to get running when I got a message from Sandy Barwick to say the race had been cancelled. I was gutted to hear the news. I also felt badly for the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.

As the news sank in, I had an idea. I decided that I’d do the run anyway. It wouldn’t be an official race but I just wanted to get out there and run. I hoped that it wouldn’t offend any of the organisers but I felt pretty sure that Sri Chinmoy would have approved of me taking on the race all by myself. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one thinking that way and when I got to the track there were a motley bunch of people ready to run, regardless. The weather was terrible and the rain was absolutely chucking it down but that didn’t put us off.

There were quite a few people aiming for the 6- and 12-hour runs. There were only two of us attempting the 24-hour run — me and Macca, aka Alex McKenzie. It was his first attempt at anything longer than a marathon so I wasn’t sure how he’d go, but Macca is a physical trainer in the New Zealand Army and he’s hard as nails and crazy with it. It was my first experience of running with Mad Macca but it wasn’t the last!

One of the great things about having Macca there was his support crew — he’d brought a whole pile of his army mates with him. They pitched their tents and they were more than happy to help out the rest of the runners with food, shelter and tons of encouragement. They really got stuck into the role that the race organisers would have. I had Mum, James and Greg there to look after me and cheer me on. I’d asked Greg to make a really simple pumpkin soup for me. It’s a great source of nutrition while you’re running. Greg had kind of missed the bit about using a simple recipe and he’d made 5 litres of pumpkin soup full of garlic, onion, ginger, orange and honey. For some people this might be a gourmet treat, but it wasn’t so good for me going into a whole day and night running around a track!

As the runners gathered together at the start, we had a moment of silence for Sri Chinmoy. Then, Gary Regtien and Sandy Barwick started us off, giving the gathering some semblance of actually being a race. So, unofficial as it was, we were off.

Macca and I kind of fell into running together because we were both planning to do the 24-hour race. We got talking along the way and found we had a lot in common. Macca’s dry sense of humour and his good pace meant that I ran really well for the first few hours. Because this was Macca’s first ultramarathon, he hung back with me uncertain of how he was going to go over the longer distance.

For the first 10 hours or so everything went pretty smoothly. A lot of the other runners achieved the goals they’d set for themselves and completed their races. As the day drew to a close, the number of people out on the track gradually thinned. Throughout the day, Macca’s crew, including his partner Dianne, had tirelessly recorded every lap that we ran and provided unstinting moral support for all the runners. It was awesome just having them there.

At around 7.30 that night though everything turned to custard — or should I say mud. A wee cyclone had decided to hit Auckland and before long we were running through torrential rain and 100 kilometre per hour winds — just what we needed after the next 11 hours on our feet.

At the 12-hour mark, Sandy came out to run with us for a while. She said, ‘You guys know this is unofficial. Have you considered calling it a day? You’ve done 12 hours and that’s pretty impressive.’

Macca and I both thought about it for a minute and we both looked at Sandy and said, ‘Nah. We’ll keep going thanks.’ Poor Sandy. I’m sure she’d have much rather been at home than watching two nutters plodding around a track. The same can probably be said for both of our support crews. They were all freezing their arses off in the middle of a muddy paddock but they were prepared to hang in there for as long as we were.

I’ve always been blessed with a huge amount of support from everyone around me when I’m running. I probably don’t say it often enough but I really appreciate everything they do for me and I try and remember to thank them for every little bit of their help and support.

By 9 pm, there was only me and Macca out there on the track in the howling wind and pouring rain. Even though we were both knackered, I still managed a good laugh when Macca turned to me in all seriousness and said, ‘Lise, if we’re not careful, before long we’ll be doing a duathlon’. It took me a while to work out what he meant but then he started doing this weird swimming motion and I got it! The track was almost under water.

It was raining so much that no matter how much of Greg’s pumpkin soup got drunk, there seemed to be more. Every time anyone braved a cup of it, the rain would top the pot up! At one point, I’d had enough of the soup so I asked my cousin James to get me a slice of bread. James ran back to the tent and told the guys I wanted some bread. Everybody in the tent was eating chips so some smart aleck decided to put some chips in my bread. James duly delivered the tasty sandwich to me. I don’t think he’d ever heard me swear before and he was a bit shocked to hear me say, ‘Don’t give me that crap. I just want some f**king bread!’ I was too spaced out to realise I could have chucked the chips away and just eaten the bread.

Things were bleak but we kept plodding along. Macca had long since wiped out his personal distance record and I was hoping to do the same. I wanted, at the very least, to reach the 160-kilometre mark. Just when I was starting to think I wasn’t going to make it, Nick Linton appeared out of the rain like an angel. He offered to run with us for a while and it was great. As much as I was enjoying running with Macca it was nice to have someone else to run with for a while. Nick also ran back and forth supplying us with food and drink. He was great.

We had a break at midnight to get a quick massage and to try and eat some real food. In the shelter of the freezing cold army tent, hypothermia was starting to set in not only on me and Macca but on some of our crew. Mum told me after that she’d never felt so unglamorous and unprepared before in all her life. James was hanging in there and Greg was braving the weather out on the track in his old Swanndri jacket.

Despite the hideous weather, my support crew still urged me on. Mind you, if any of them had complained, I would have pointed out that Macca was so determined to do his personal best that he wouldn’t even stop for a pee. He’d just run and pee. Thank God it was raining. What did this have to do with his crew? Well, it was them that were massaging him when we stopped. Gross, yes, but that’s the world of ultra-running!

It was good to have a break but I just wanted to get back out on the track. The more I moved, the warmer I stayed. However, I was having trouble eating. This had been an ongoing problem whenever I raced, but since joining the gym and getting my team of Death Valley trainers together we’d been sorting it out. Macca had no such problems. At one stage, Nick asked him if he wanted a sandwich. Macca said he did. Nick’s response, ‘What do you want? We’ve got jam, banana, Marmite, peanut butter . . .’ Macca said, ‘Yeah.’ Nick was a bit confused, ‘Well, which one do you want?’ Macca’s response was ‘All of it!’ I swear that man could eat road-kill!

It wasn’t long before I realised that hypothermia was starting to affect me. At one point, I felt myself just slip out of consciousness briefly. As I fell, Nick Linton caught me. That combined with dehydration and digestive issues meant that after 18 hours and 15 minutes, I finally decided to call it a day. Well, not quite a day but near enough. In the end I’d covered 135 kilometres. I’d really wanted to reach my goal of 160 kilometres even though it wasn’t an official race.

Macca managed to carry on for another two hours before also deciding to chuck it in. I still reckon he could have finished the whole 24 hours if he hadn’t been worried about the state of his crew. Even though it had turned out to be nothing more than a pretty extreme training run, I was really happy that I’d decided to run. It was great to meet Mad Macca and to make a whole pile of other new friends. Best of all, it felt good to be running at that level in New Zealand.

Nutrition

In general, you’ll get more out of good organic raw food than the processed stuff. I try to eat a good balanced diet when I’m training but when I’m running it’s a different story.

If a race is longer than 10 hours, I can’t eat anything solid. My digestion shuts down but I still need to take in calories and energy. In those cases, I rely on drinks like Sustagen, which is easily digestible and contains energy, protein, vitamins and minerals. I also have electrolyte drinks, bananas and flat ginger ale while I’m running. Small sips of flat ginger ale settle my stomach, the sugar provides a boost and it tastes great. Make sure it’s flat though — the bubbles will cause no end of trouble in your stomach if you’re running.

Any drink you take should be lukewarm. If your body is running hot and you drink something that’s 5–10° colder than you are, it will shock your system. If it’s too hot, it’ll have the same effect.