“So although I have a business that sponsors events and athletes with our magic Tailwind potions and cool gear, I had actually pushed back on entering an Ultra Marathon… for close to 3 years!
Why the change? Would you believe peer pressure? Peer pressure from Erin Vaughan – one of the raddest trail runners to come out of New Plymouth!
I thought I had done a really cool thing by providing her and her dad (also a running legend) an entry to The WUU2k. Job done right? Well, little did I know what plans Erin had in mind. To break it down she smashed all my preconceived notions of why I thought I couldn’t run an Ultra – and flipped them on my head!
The furthest I had run before that was a road half marathon, many moons ago. Hated it. Too boring for me. I’m like a goldfish. I like to be distracted… not too difficult a task really!
Fast forward and I’ve done a few of these Ultras now. And the real message here is ANYONE can run their own Ultra, whatever that actually translates to in distance.
Why do I keep entering these things? The short answer is the rad gang I run with! The 4 of us have no intention of getting on any podiums or getting to the finish line in a particular time. We run, we laugh, we take loads of selfies, we dress in colour (grey is NOT a colour in our group), and we watch out for each other on the trail. We have developed a really cool friendship. Tailwind talks about being an athletes ‘support person’ in training and races. Well, we’re each other’s support person.
And trail runners are cool people!!”
Mark @tailwindnutritionnz
(Wellington)
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Portraits of Runners + their stories
@RunnersNZ
