If you shine the spotlight on your strengths, you will excel
Training for Death Valley was pretty tough. I ran the 100 kilometre nationals even though I’d injured my back quite badly falling off a chair at the shop. I was in agony the day before the race but, somehow, I managed to drag myself out there and do the run. Even with the injury I got second.
I also did heaps of time at the gym and running around Taranaki. To try and get used to the heat I’d put on heaps of clothes when I was training. Another thing I did to try and prepare me for Death Valley was train in a sauna. I’d get in there and do step-ups and that sort of thing. I did that two or three times a week to try and get used to the heat. The key with heat training is to avoid overdoing it and depleting all your mineral reserves before you get into the desert. The only real way of getting used to the heat is to spend time in the place where you’re going to run. Unfortunately, I had a long way to go before I could afford to take my team over to the United States.
Neil, his wife Sam, Chris and I had a meeting at City Fitness and we brainstormed about how we could get the money together. We invited Andrea Needham to the meeting as well. We’d met Andrea on the Around the Mountain Relay as she was one of that amazing team of heart- and lung-transplant survivors that had enjoyed Nick’s impromptu strip show. We knew that she was an expert on leadership so we decided we’d ask her for some advice.
Once I’d explained to her what I wanted to do, she just got it straightaway. From that moment on she took over the project management and the fundraising for the project. She was unstoppable. Her energy and dedication was awe inspiring. Andrea recommended that we set up a trust and she got lawyers and accountants on board. Luckily, Andrea knew the right people to ask and soon Govett Quilliam, lawyers, and Staples Rodway, an accounting firm, were on as sponsors.
Andrea’s networking skills were incredible. She went to work trying to raise sponsorship, asking everyone she knew and she quickly found my principle sponsor. Andrea belonged to a group of women who all had businesses that enabled them to work from home. They met once a week so that their working lives didn’t become too isolating. It also gave them a forum to talk about any issues they had with their businesses. Inge Naenen-Vercammen was a member of the group. Inge and her husband, Marcel, had moved to Taranaki from Belgium in 1999. Soon after, they set up their own business, Van Dyck Fine Foods, making crepes, blinis and hotcakes.
Andrea told Inge about my plans to run through Death Valley and how I needed a naming-rights sponsor. Straightaway, Inge said, ‘Yep, we’ll do that’. On the spot she agreed to pay a lot of money to be my principle sponsor. Inge then had to go home and tell her husband what she’d done. I can’t imagine he was too thrilled that she’d committed a large portion of their marketing budget for the year! Despite any reservations Marcel might have had, they were true to Inge’s word and very soon we’d signed a contract with them. From there things really snowballed. Now that we had our main sponsor, other companies were happy to come on board. Taranaki people were amazing. It didn’t hurt that my brother Dawson had played rugby for Taranaki and people knew that I was ‘Dawson’s sister’!
One person that Dawson put me onto was David Casey. He’s the owner of local company, Big Media, who specialise in billboard advertising. David listened to my story over a wine one night. Straightaway he was keen and said he was happy to do whatever he could to help, including tapping some of his contacts for cash. David rang his mate at Crave Club, the local strip bar, and they chipped in a pile of money. David also decided that I needed more exposure — thankfully not the type that you’d see in the Crave Club — and he gave me space on two huge billboards in prime spots around New Plymouth to let people know what I was doing.
Blank billboards weren’t going to be much use so Fire Design joined the team and came up with some awesome graphics for the billboards. The feedback from these boards was awesome. Heaps of people approached me wanting to know what I was doing and how they could help. The buzz was building and, before long, the local newspaper was onto my plans. They’d report whenever I did another race and they’d print updates about how my preparation and training was going.
Once the papers were reporting about the project, radio stations started to get interested. City Fitness did a lot of advertising with More FM so it seemed natural for them to sponsor me, too. They gave me a huge advertising budget and they backed me up 100 per cent.
With the City Fitness guys we held a 12-hour endurance day at the gym. Members of the gym and local people came in and would run with me while I did 12 hours on the treadmill. Gerhard even joined me on the treadmill. We’d kept in touch since our divorce and he really wanted to come back to New Zealand to see me and spend some more time here. We had a great time together and he helped me with my training. Gerhard had run Badwater in 2007 so when he offered to crew for me, I jumped at the chance. After everything we’d been through, he knew me better than anyone and his experience would be a huge benefit to the whole team in the States.
Over the endurance day at City Fitness, heaps of people came in and ran with me, many of them doing personal bests, which was cool. It was so great to be able to meet, run with and thank people for their support. Maori TV covered the day and that helped to get the message out to the rest of New Zealand. That day Andrea’s home business group came out in force, too. They went out on the streets of New Plymouth and rattled buckets to collect donations. They were absolutely amazing.
Sandwich Extreme, a sandwich shop around the corner from our shop, came up with a really novel way of supporting me. They put a Lisa Tamati sandwich on their menu — it was a really healthy combo of salmon and cottage cheese so it fitted the cause nicely. One dollar from every one of those sandwiches sold went towards my race fund. Every dollar we made was a step towards making it to Death Valley.
I really felt like the whole of New Plymouth and Taranaki were supporting me. I don’t know if I’d have got that amount of support and excitement about what I was planning to do if I lived anywhere else in the country. Somehow, I’d managed to capture the community’s imagination and everyone had faith in me and that I could do it.
I realised we needed to do a big event to raise awareness and, of course, cash. We decided to hold a night of entertainment and have an auction. I talked to the mayor of New Plymouth, Peter Tennant, and he offered me the use of a function room at the Devon Hotel, which he owns. It was so cool to have the mayor on my team!
I never do things by half, so I decided to have a fashion show as well as an auction. I managed to rustle up clothes from local stores and a whole lot of my mates to model them. We had to practice three nights a week to get it together but it was loads of fun and we were on a mission. It was hard work but it was a great night.
My cousin, Glen Osbourne, came down from Auckland and he emceed the night. He was fantastic. I can’t believe what a hilarious speaker he is. He also managed to hold the whole show together. My other cousin, Hemi Takarua, played guitar and sang. We’re a talented family, eh?
One of the highlights of the night was having the chance to help one of my friends fulfil one of the things on her bucket list. On her list of things to do before she died was to get her kit off in public. This was the perfect opportunity. To the sound of ‘You can leave your hat on’, me and two of my girlfriends — who shall remain nameless — and Chris, Hemi and Haden did a slinky striptease. It was hilarious. Thankfully, we didn’t have to get nude. It was as tasteful as it could be!
Once that was over and everyone had had enough to drink we held the auction. One of the local real estate agents, Sandi Smith, was on hand to be the auctioneer. Sandi was amazing and she certainly managed to extract cash from people’s pockets. As lot after lot went under the hammer, I got more and more excited. By the end of the night we had raised $10,000 by auctioning all the goods donated by local businesses. One of the best things was a beautiful painting my father had done of Mt Taranaki. It sold for $3500 — I was thrilled.
Once the auction was over, I knew that I was going to get to Death Valley. My dream was going to come true all because of the generosity and enthusiasm of the people of Taranaki.
Goal-setting
People say to me, you can run a couple of hundred kilometres so running a marathon must be easy. That’s a load of rubbish. Whatever you set your mind to do on any particular day is what you’ve set out to do. You won’t achieve any more because you’ve already decided on your goal. It’s the same for me. If I set out to run 20 kilometres and then someone says do another twenty, I won’t be able to. I’m shattered having finished the first lot. I have to prepare inside my head before going into a 200-kilometre race. I know what I’m getting in for and that’s what I focus my mental preparation on.
No run is easy but whatever you put your mind to you can do. Ultramarathon running is about the top three inches. It’s about setting goals and deciding not to give up before those goals have been achieved. That might sound easy, but it’s not — especially if you’re running long distances. Then there are hours and hours that you spend having to convince yourself to go on. You need to be really focused and know how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how much you can put yourself through to reach your goal.