Queenstown ultrarunner Brooke Thomas has finished fourth female, and first in her age group, in a huge race in Australia — and also qualified for a major race in France.
The 35-year-old, who set the length-of-New Zealand women’s trail running record in 2020/’21, was competing in Ultra Trail Australia, in the Blue Mountains — the southern hemisphere’s largest trail run — but nearly didn’t make the start-line.
‘‘I was really unwell for probably the whole month leading up to the race.
‘‘Even the night before I said to the guys that came over to crew me, I was thinking about pulling out.
‘‘And we decided, just start and see how you feel and just take it easy.’’
To her astonishment, she was then the leading female at the halfway mark.
‘‘I was a little bit horrified, actually, it was not my game plan, like I just meant to do my own race and not worry about everyone else.
‘‘I was just trying to qualify for a race in France so I just had to do a set time — under 12 hours 15 minutes.’’
Thomas says she couldn’t hold back some more experienced runners in the second half, but was stoked in finish in 12:09 and to also win her 35-to-39 age category and come 41st overall on the ‘‘super-brutal’’ course.
Explaining why she did so well, she quips: ‘‘I ate 15 ice blocks — magic trick.’’
More seriously, though, ‘‘I think it’s probably just because I’d taken the pressure off myself and didn’t expect too much out of the race.
‘‘It was way more brutal than I was expecting, lots of like scrambling over rocks and rope ladders and way too many stairs — on the last kilometre there were 1000 steps, so it was pretty full-on.’’
She’s now qualified for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc 100km world series final in France on September 1.
