Butcher's marathon effort a real winner

Apprehension over an injury-shortened preparation didn't stop Masterton endurance runner Graeme Butcher from winning the New Zealand ultra marathon 100km championship for the third time in Taupo over the weekend.
Butcher, 47, had only been in serious training since mid-December due to a leg injury which had caused his withdrawal from the New Zealand team to contest the world 100km championships in Italy in October, and was concerned he may have been a
"bit underdone".
However, Butcher also knew that with another New Zealand team likely to be selected from the event and not having a qualifying time behind him since withdrawing from the worlds he had little choice but to front up and give it his best shot.
"I would have preferred another three to four weeks of solid training to get into top shape, I was pretty apprehensive whether I'd see it through or not," he said.
The Taupo event attracted the largest-ever field ever assembled in New Zealand for a 100km race with 50 runners entered, including some from Australia. The course was a double out and back on State Highway One from Taupo to Hatepe which meant tackling the infamous Hatepe Hill twice.
Butcher's race strategy was to run at a steady pace throughout with the objective of making the top four.
Time was very much a secondary consideration.
Pre-race favourite Martin Lukes, a sixth placegetter at world championship level, led the field out at the 3.15am start and Butcher settled into a chasing pack of four which included two Aussies, one of whom was Australian representative Kerrie Bremner. She was actually her country's top female performer at the world champs in Italy.
"Kerrie and I chatted a bit over the first 25km and she let me know what I had missed out on," Butcher said.
Weather conditions were a mixed bag with it being very hot and humid for the first hour and then the wind arrived and buffeted the runners as the sun came up.
Butcher never felt comfortable early on, a combination of the early start which meant running in the dark, wet roads and puddles and the torturous Hatepe Hill playing on the mind.
He went through the first 25kms in fourth place in 2hrs 5mins, much slower than his recent training runs but nothing to worry about.
"When you considered the race conditions and course you soon realised no one was going to record a top time," he said.
Lukes now had a 10min lead and was always going to be hard to beat but Butcher's guess that the other two runners in front of him were pushing too hard too early proved right and by the 40km mark he was in second place himself, the first marathon (42kms) having been cut out in 3hrs 35mins.
It was about then that Butcher received notice from his wife Sandy, who was his support crew, that Lukes was starting to struggle up front.
He had pulled a hamstring and withdrew from the race after 45kms.
It was a huge blow for Lukes who had also been forced to withdraw from the world champs in Italy through injury.
His bad luck left Butcher in front and he went through the 50km mark in 4hrs 14mins, about 10mins slower than would normally be the case.
But Butcher was having his own problems.
The rain and sweat from early on was causing chaffing worries and blisters and he could feel the skin on one foot starting to peel apart.
"Once this started I had to stop, apply a lot of vasoline, put new socks on and hope it would all hold together for another 48kms," Butcher recalled.
"And my quads were starting to sting a bit too!"
Going through the halfway point Butcher held a slender two to three minute lead over Bremner with the rest of the field actually losing ground on him.
The grind up the north side of the Hatepe Hill took a lot out of Butcher on the second lap and from 65km he was struck by a feeling of sickness which saw the next 15km take 1hrs 40mins.
"I couldn't do anything about it, it took me a long time to come right," he said.
At the 75km mark Butcher was still 10mins ahead of Bremner but by 80kms she had gathered him in and while he stayed with her for a while she had moved out to a 2min lead by 85kms.
Fortunately for Butcher the sickness had eased by this stage, thanks in part to eating a few jelly beans, but whether he could overhaul the smooth running Bremner was debatable, to say the least.
Unbeknown to him, however, wife Sandy had sent a text to New Zealand Ultra Marathon Association president Sandy Barwick, who was on course overseeing the event, detailing what was happening and the former world record holder for the ultra marathon, soon arrived to give Butcher added support.
"She wasn't worried about a girl beating me but she didn't want to lose the New Zealand championships to an Australian," Butcher said.
"She told me I wasn't in enough pain yet, to make it hurt some more. She was in my ear for a couple of kilometres making sure I wouldn't let up."
By 90kms Butcher was back in race mode and he made steady inroads into Bremner's advantage, whittling it back to 90secs and then, by the 94km mark, taking the lead.
In fact, he did much more than that, pulling away from Bremner to win by more than 2mins.
"It wasn't a great time but it was a very satisfying win," was Butcher's typically under-stated assessment of his gutsy victory.
"And I came away with no major injures and without aggravating the old ones. I did lose a bit of skin along the way but I guess that will heal pretty quickly."
Butcher's previous national ultra marathon title wins came in 2004 and 2006.
RESULTS OF THE TAUPO EVENT:-
Men: Graeme Butcher (Masterton) 9hrs 0mins 56secs 1, Alex McKenzie (Tauranga) 9.28.50 2, Anthony Ng (Auckland) 9.48.33 3.
Women: Kerrie Bremner (Australia) 9.03.03 1, Val Musket (Otago) 9.38.55 2, Carol O'Hear (Taupo) 10.40.50 3.