Photo: Sportograf/Tarawera Ultra-Trail
Polly Taylor. Unbroken, the road back to UTMB — Dirt Church Radio 266.
Kia ora e te whānau! She’s 90 lbs soaking wet and with a personality 150 ft tall: Polly Taylor is a force to be reckoned with.
A guide in the Marlborough Sounds, past Northburn 100 mile winner, and someone who could talk the iron legs off a stove, Polly is someone who exemplifies that maximum growth occurs on the cusp of support and challenge.
In 2019, with her ultramarathon dreams about the come true, she was hit by a car.
What follows is a tale of heart ache, tragedy, loss, gratitude, triumph and redemption.
Eugene and Matt spoke to Polly as she toe’d the line at the Tarawera Ultra Trail 100 miler in the hopes of making her way back to Chamonix to have the chance to compete at UTMB after being run down on a pedestrian crossing cruelly robbed her of the chance four years ago.
What unfolds will leave you cheering loudly – for her, and for your own best life.
Also in this episode – a rundown of the race we missed out on, Old Ghost Ultra, including a report on the ground from special correspondent Conrad Langridge. Best Enjoyed Running.
Listen on your favourite app, or via the player above.
We’ve put this DCR episode into the AidStation podcast feed for free because the original DCR podcast you know and love will always be free. Paid subscribers get the AidStation podcast too.
Paid subscribers can read the rest of the newsletter, including Matt writing about the post-race somnelence a throwback DCR Bookclub banger, and some soul-filling suggestions in The Stoke. If you haven’t already signed up for a monthly or annual subscription, we’d love to see you in the AidStation crew!
And The Circus Leaves Town: When It’s More Important to Act Like a Pro Runner Than Ever
– Matt
Matt MCing at the Tarawera finish line in 2021, bearing witness to an astonishing Katie Wright victory.
As a foreshadowing I present to you the lengths that I have gone to this morning in avoiding writing this essay. I have done hill repeats, recorded a podcast, cleaned the house, gone shopping, I’ve even done my physio-ordered rehabilitation exercises (which in itself should be ringing alarm bells).
Heck, as I sit here typing I’m fighting off the urge to go and have a nap. Sleep is, after-all, one of the most important facets of recovery and wellbeing for us runners, dontcha know? Maybe I should help Rebecca with the roasted egg-plant. But of course I must write ... It’s deeply frustrating when I know what I need to do – and to be very clear – love to do, and don’t want to do it.
It’s a sticky wicket for someone who for the last 10 years has had a nominally successful side-piece as part of Aotearao’s small yet perfectly-formed running media.
Bear with me here, I’ve just got to go put some coffee on …
It’s bad enough to drag the chain as a one man band, without letting down one Eugene C. Bingham, brains of the DCR operation and a man who’s wellspring of understanding and patience I’ve yet to plumb the depths of (despite my best efforts). When I’m like this, I am, as the kids would say, A Whole Mood.
But there is a grain of discipline in the midst of this sloppy mess, and unlike past years, I’m not twisting myself in knots trying to understand the ennui. I know why. Because I’m a week past Tarawera Ultra-Trail and I miss the chemical high.
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