Develop an attitude of gratitude and acknowledge what others have given you or contributed to your growth
Once the elation had subsided a bit, all I could think about was getting something to eat and having a shower. The desire for food was largely because I hadn’t eaten anything solid for the previous 40 hours. The combination of extreme temperatures and exhaustion meant that I’d battled nausea throughout much of the race and I had depended on drinks for most of my calories. I’d taken in between 8000 and 10,000 calories but I’d expended about 23,000 calories. No wonder I was hungry!
The first thing I ate after the race was a burrito from a gas station at about 2 am — that’s the American equivalent of getting a pie at a petrol station in the middle of the night! And you know what, it actually tasted pretty damn good.
When we got to the motel in Lone Pine, at about 4 am, there was a bit of a problem. I’d finished the race in a much better time than expected and our booking wasn’t until the next night. The whole place was booked out. Thankfully, somehow, the guy at reception thought he’d found us a room but when we went up there we spent ages trying the key, to no avail. Then the door opened. We’d been trying the wrong room and had woken up the occupant who was none too happy with us.
Our hopes for a room to ourselves evaporated. In the end the manager let us sleep in the pool area on deck chairs. While the rest of the team were having a few celebratory beers, I managed to get in a shower and examine the damage I’d done to myself. Even though the race was a massive battle, I was in pretty good physical condition at the end. I could stand up OK and, even though I had holes in my back, I didn’t have a single blister on my feet! In fact, I’d run the whole race in the same pair of shoes. The time I’d spent getting assessed at Front Runner in New Plymouth had certainly paid off. A lot of runners will go through several pairs of shoes in a race like this. Sometimes, it takes a while to get used to different shoes and that can slow you down. At least I hadn’t had to worry about that!
I was in such good form that the day after the race, I left Gerhard, Chris and Neil dealing with their hangovers and went to the local gas station to get the car tyre sorted out! When I got back to the motel they were still carked out but I was feeling pretty good. After a couple of day’s recovery, it was time to head home. Gerhard had been such an amazing support for me over the past few days it was really tough to say goodbye to him. But once again, he had to go back to his life in Austria and my life was now firmly ensconced in New Zealand.
Sandy, Neil, Chris and I all turned up at the airport in San Francisco to check in for our Air New Zealand flight home. Little did we know that Andrea, despite her set-back, had been working her magic from New Plymouth and the Air New Zealand guys were expecting us. We got the full VIP treatment. We were ushered straight to the Koru Lounge and once we were on the flight, one of the crew members made an announcement saying that I was the first New Zealand woman to complete the Badwater Ultramarathon through Death Valley. Everyone was cheering and clapping — it was a great moment. The crew then presented us with a bottle of champagne. It made me realise once again what a great country New Zealand is.
I didn’t really need the champagne though — as a result of the fluid retention I’d suffered during the race I ended up weighing 4 kilograms more than when I’d started and I couldn’t blame the gas station burrito or the food in the Koru Lounge. Throughout the flight home, I was going to the loo every 20 minutes!
Arriving back in New Plymouth, there was a huge crowd waiting for me at the airport. The reception was amazing. We went straight to Crowded House, a bar in town, where a whole lot of people had paid to have breakfast with me. The jetlag, the pain and the exhaustion I felt were put aside while I celebrated with the people who’d helped me get to Death Valley in the first place. Everyone was so excited for me, including Tim Fowler, a 90-year-old World War II veteran who was so impressed with my achievements that he had come from Waitara to meet me! He was awesome and the reception was fantastic.
The next couple of weeks were really tough for me. While you might think I’d be elated and running round saying ‘I did it! I did it!’ I was actually physically and mentally shattered. Having achieved the goal I’d focused on for so long, I felt a bit bereft. My body was utterly depleted and even the simplest of daily tasks were a bit challenging for me. I’d lived on adrenaline throughout the race and now my body was depleted of adrenaline and serotonin. That combined with leaving Gerhard again meant that I felt really low. All I wanted to do was climb into bed and stay there for a week while Mum brought me cups of tea!
Over that time I had hundreds of emails and calls from well-wishers. I did heaps of media interviews and the requests for speaking engagements started to flood in. I knew that these were the people who had helped me achieve my goal of running Badwater so there was no way I was going to let them down. I fought the desire to disappear under the duvet and I worked hard to make sure that I thanked all the people who had been so generous to me.
I slowly got back to normal, but it wasn’t until I saw the video on 20/20 about a month later that I was able to begin to appreciate what I’d achieved. I watched it with Mum and Dad and it was funny seeing us all on telly. Watching the doco, it really hit me that I’d done it — I’d actually conquered Death Valley.
After the documentary screened, heaps of people started to recognise me whenever I was in Auckland. It was amazing how much that 20/20 show stuck with people. I was used to people in Taranaki knowing who I was, but to get bailed up in a supermarket in Auckland was something else. It was awesome.
The generosity people showed before I went didn’t subside after I got back. One day I was sitting in the shop and a guy walked in with a big bunch of flowers and a bottle of champagne. I thought he was probably coming to buy jewellery for his girlfriend to go with the wine and flowers. Mum jokingly said, ‘Ohh are they for me? You shouldn’t have.’ He was really apologetic and said, ‘Well, no, they’re actually for your daughter.’ I couldn’t believe it. It turned out he’d come up from Stratford just to congratulate me. How amazing is that?
Even though I felt pretty bad after I got back from Death Valley, I only had four or five days off training before I got back into it. Not long after I got back, I went up to Auckland to do a guest appearance on Code on Maori Television. The guys from the show were fantastically supportive of me throughout the whole build-up to Death Valley so it was great to be able to go back and talk to them about my race.
While I was in Auckland I started training with Gerard Fynmore — or Fyn as he’s known — at City Fitness in Newmarket. Fyn’s an ex-army physical trainer and he really helped me get back from the low that I was in after Death Valley. Setting new goals really helped me to dig myself out of the low — the Auckland Marathon, the 24 Hour Nationals. I managed to run 192.5 kilometres in the 24-hour race at the nationals when my previous best had been 155 kilometres. I was stoked and, when I did that, I knew I was back on track. Maybe, just maybe, I’d run Death Valley again.
December 2008 was an amazing month for me. At the New Zealand Maori Sports Awards in Rotorua I was named Maori Sportswoman of the Year. It was a fantastic night. I attended the ceremony with Mum, Dad, Fyn, Casey, Aunty Peggy and my cousin James. Macca decided he’d come, too, so he ran over from Tauranga! It was a great night and I felt so privileged to even be nominated. Winning was an absolute honour. Being recognised for an award like this was a great pay-off for all the hard work that I’d put in over the years.
That wasn’t the last accolade to come my way for the year. At the end of the month, the Taranaki Daily News named me their ‘Person of the Year’. I couldn’t believe it. All I’d ever tried to do was achieve my goals and, at the same time, inspire other people to achieve theirs. Getting this kind of recognition was just a wonderful bonus.
The elation I felt after winning these awards was soon tinged with sadness. In early January, Andrea Needham, my dynamic project manager, passed away. Without Andrea’s unbelievable energy and support, I don’t know if I would have made it to Death Valley. She was such an inspiration to me. Her strength and determination to fight her illness was an inspiration to me. And I know she would have been proud of me for setting some new goals — one of which was to run Badwater again in 2009.
That’s right. I decided to go back and run Death Valley again. I believe I’ve got a few more years left in me at this caper and I’m going to make the most of them. The older I get the more experienced I am and the more tricks I know. But on the flipside of that I also have to stay fitter and work harder than when I was younger. The body is an amazing thing and it does recover from terrible hardships. When I give mine a little bit of time and a little bit of space it comes back stronger than ever. Ageing slows everything down, but at the moment I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. I’m still doing personal bests and I’ve got to know my body and how much it can handle more than I have before.