Queenstown nurse on track for 58-day Te Araroa record

Brooke Thomas was on track to set a new record running the Te Araroa trail arriving in Bluff last night.

Thomas, by midday yesterday, was expected to finish the trail that runs from Cape Reinga down to Bluff in 58 days, which is the fastest known time for a female runner. The current record for a female is 66 days.

A competitive rower until she was 22, Thomas had to give the sport away when she had a pacemaker/ defibrillator inserted to regulate her heartbeat.

During the run she has been fundraising for Heart Kids New Zealand, as a way of giving back to an organisation that supports Kiwi kids born with a heart condition.

Thomas, a nurse who lives in Queenstown, has been training for some time for the trail. Her coach, Adam Keen, said Thomas had gone through about six pairs of running shoes since she started off in November 2020.

She was consistently ticking over an average of 60 kilometres per day.

On some sections of the trail, she also had to carry her own gear, Keen said. Training for the event had been getting Thomas to the point where she could complete up to 60km in a day, but the crucial thing was her ability to recover well the next day, he said.

Because Thomas works as a nurse, they’d had to factor in her night shifts some weeks during training, he said.

Apart from a couple of hiccups, Thomas had run comfortably each day, Keen said. She has run mostly during the day, and on some days would finish at 9pm. Some mornings she has started at 5am.