Ultra-tough 100km run ends in bronze

Masterton's Graeme Butcher was delighted with his third place finish in the New Zealand ultramarathon championships held over 100km at Taupo last Saturday.
Butcher was defending champion, but in what was probably the strongest field to have contested the event in years, was always likely to play second fiddle to Martin Lukes of Christchurch _ who was seventh at the 2009 Commonwealth ultramarathon championships in England _ and rookie Kerry Suter from Hamilton, who had shown enormous potential over the longer distances.
As it happened Lukes ran out the winner in 7 hours 30 minutes 35 seconds, with Suter second in 7h 45m 9s and Butcher third in 8h 35m 4s, 26 minutes faster than his winning time the previous year and 16 minutes faster than when he was a New Zealand teammate of Lukes' at the Commonwealth championships. In fact, it was Butcher's fastest time over the 100km for four years and close to his personal best of 8h 31m set in 2006 and he hopes it will be seen as good enough to earn him a place in the national team for the world ultramarathon championships in Gibraltar in November.
The Taupo course was an undulating four laps of an out-and-back 25km loop heading south along State Highway 1, meaning runners had plenty of opportunity to keep an eye on their opposition as the race progressed.
Butcher knew he was in reasonable shape for the race following some solid training sessions. Twice he had covered over 200km in a seven-day period, with his longest daily runs being up to 70km. Even so, the hectic early pace caught him by surprise and he decided to concentrate on staying patient and running his own race, tactics which saw him back in the middle of the field for the first 15km.
Making lap one more difficult was the fact it started at 3.15am and he needed to be extra vigilant to avoid tripping or stumbling and injuring an ankle in the process. Butcher was satisfied to complete the first lap in 2h 4m despite being well down on the leaders.
Lap two started promisingly for Butcher but at 30km he struck his first bad patch and it lasted about 30 minutes.
''Probably I ate and drank too much and it just wasn't digesting, so I had to lay off the fuel for about an hour,'' Butcher said.
''And that's something which you have to be careful of, because you can hit the wall later in the race because of it.''.
Butcher completed the second lap in 2h 8m, giving him a halfway time of 4h 12m. He went through the first marathon (42km) in 3h 32m and by the end of the lap was in seventh place. There was soreness in the quads and despite still running strongly Butcher was starting to think he might just be making up the numbers.
But lap three was kind to Butcher and he was able to keep pushing the pace. He gradually made up lost ground as some of those in front began to tire from the hot pace and was in fifth place at the 75km mark, having completed the lap two minutes quicker than the second lap, in 2h 6m. By the 78km point Butcher had moved into fourth place and was feeling good. Then at 85km he took over third position, with his second marathon having been completed in 3h 34m, only 2 minutes slower than the first one.
For Butcher it was now a case of pressing on and looking to consolidate his placing and all went well until the 93km mark, where he had what he labels a ''huge meltdown''.
''The body just stopped abruptly, there is nothing you can do,'' he said. ''I'd been burning up so much energy and just drained the tank.''
Fortunately for Butcher he had experienced similar feelings before and knew what to do. He ate a few jelly beans and had a drink before waiting for the sugar rush to work its way into the system. After about five minutes it kicked in and he was able to resume the race and make it to the finish still eight minutes ahead of the fourth placegetter. ''I had to talk myself through the last 5km, I was really struggling,'' Butcher said, adding that wife Sandy had been a tremendous help as his support team, providing nutrition and fluids when they were needed. ''She was pretty quick to react when she saw I was in trouble. I wouldn't have made it without her.''