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The Riverhead Backyard ReLaps Ultra is the most brutal race in New Zealand, with entrants running till they drop, and only one person is left standing.
It’s a race with no end. Entrants have to keep running until they simply can’t go on, until they drop, until there’s only one person left standing. Mike White was at last weekend’s Riverhead Backyard ReLaps Ultra and watched heroics and heartbreak unfold in the most brutal race imaginable.
Mike White/Stuff
Jub Bryant rests between laps, a cup of Coke in one hand, a boiled potato in the other. Bryant had never run more than 100km, but completed 181km at Riverhead, and was the third-to-last person to quit.
Mountain Scene
January 31, 2021
By PHILIP CHANDLER
Ace Queenstown ultrarunner Brooke Thomas says she received a ‘‘lovely’’ message from the Aussie whose length-of-New Zealand women’s record she’s just smashed.
The 32-year-old nurse, who finished in Bluff last Friday night, completed the 3000km Te Araroa Trail, from Cape Reinga, in 57 days 12 minutes, compared with Lucy Clark’s 66 days, 7 hours, last summer.
Thomas: ‘‘[Clark] messaged me to say, ‘well done, I’m happy to pass [my record] on to you’.
‘‘I was so impressed because it was such good sportsmanship, I thought that was lovely.’’
Thomas averaged 45km a day in the North Island and 60km in the South Island, but last Friday, her longest day, she ran 100km.
Highlights of the trek have come from small everyday moments and having family, friends and strangers to share the journey with along the way, Thomas said. Her body had held up fairly well but Thomas said her goal was to not wreck herself and enjoy it. Thomas s mum Robynne Thomas, who had been with her the whole way, said in the North Island her daughter averaged 45km a day. During the South Island stint it was 60km a day. It had been special to spend that time with her daughter, Robynne said.
Supplied
Brooke Thomas, a Queenstown-based nurse and former competitive rower.