A bad fall half way into the 102km Tarawera Ultra Marathon in New Zealand in February could have ended Lou Clifton’s race. Instead, she wrapped her buff around her bleeding leg and hobbled on to be the fifth female finisher.
“The mud was so bad in places it was hard to stand upright let alone run,” the Mt Victoria runner said.
“I did trip badly in a technical section and bashed up my knee – a rock or stick punctured my shin quite deeply. There was a lot of blood and I thought bone but it was just a big flap of skin.”
She soldiered on to the 58km aid station, and a medic briefly looked at her leg which had stopped bleeding by then and she carried on.
Near the end she went the wrong way which cost her a few minutes time, but she crossed the finish line in 11 hours 19 minutes 59 seconds. The first female was Kelly Wolf (US) in 10:08:45, in a race won for the second time by Dylan Bowman from the US in 8:27:41.
“I was very happy with fifth place. I did not expect it with such an amazing field of runners,” the 45-year-old said.
“I tore my hamstring in September and it's taken four months to recover. I lost a lot of fitness which has taken a while to get back. I had about half the length of proper training time that I would normally have so I was quite relaxed going into the race as I didn't know what to expect mentally and physically but that made me a bit more cautious in my racing.
“Overall I am happy, I don't think I could have done much better all things considered.”
