Clark Fountain is a rising name in the New Zealand ultra-marathon scene. Hailing from Greymouth, the twenty-one-year-old is currently completing his master’s in product design at UC. While he’s only been running properly for the last five years, he’s completed a host of marathons and ultra-marathons. Canta had the pleasure of catching up with Clark to gain a glimpse into the life of a student ultra-marathon runner.

Take us through your running journey. How’d you get started?

So it originally started in high school, running in the school athletics. I did pretty good in those. Coming from Greymouth, my school was really involved in doing the coast-to-coast, so we entered as a school team in 2020 and 2021. In 2020, we did a three-person, two-day team, and then in 2021, we did a two-person, two-day team, which we got third in, so we were pretty stoked.

From there though, I took a break from the running stuff, kind of got a bit burnt out from all that training. I came to uni and ended up doing the Christchurch Marathon last year, which was my first marathon. From that, I got the bug back again. I joined one of my friends who was doing a 100-mile race down in Naseby, which is the middle of the South Island (cold as), and I’ve been doing a bunch of ultras since then.

What does your training schedule look like?

I’ve got a coach at the moment. We're training for a few 100km races, so trying to do anywhere in between, probably 110km to 120km a week and starting to kind of ramp that up. Lots of training in the hills and faster paces, which I'm just starting to get used to. It's been a bit of a shift from doing my own stuff. It's pretty hard with also doing study as well. Especially during the exam week, that was pretty tricky. Studying during the day and running at night, a lot of long days.

For so many people, running is a love-hate relationship. What’s your relationship with running like?

There are definitely bad days. I think when I first started running, most of it was on the road, and it was just the same old loops, which was kind of boring. But with doing ultra running, you can go out and explore, run through the Port Hills or something like that, which is a lot more exciting.

What is it that you love about running?

I guess probably the main thing is I've learned so much about myself. Just going out and doing difficult things, that’s something I really like about doing ultramarathons. I also enjoy keeping generally pretty fit, I enjoy that side of things a lot more than just going to the gym. And then finally, the great people you meet. I haven’t met a single person in the ultra community that I haven’t liked; it’s such a cool group of people.

What are some of the main challenges that you face when running?

I think the main challenges are mental. I'd say it's probably like 30% physical and then probably 70% mental. You’ve just got to keep telling yourself that you can do it, because most of the time you know your body's done it before, or you’ve felt this feeling before.

What has been the biggest challenge or lesson you have faced over your journey so far?

That’s a tricky one. I think the biggest challenge is finding time. Trying to manage other areas in my life that I’m also passionate about, like studying and working as well. Managing all of that has probably been the biggest challenge.

Heading into the future, what are some goals you’ve got for the 2nd half of the year and some goals for the next few years?

In four weeks, I have a backyard Ultra, where you run 6.7km every hour, so hopefully I can put in a pretty big effort there. Two weeks after that, I’ve got a free entry to a 100-mile race up in Whangārei, called the Northland 100. It's the first time they've run a 100-mile race up there. So that will make for a busy few weeks.

I guess the goals for the end of the year would be to run some fast 100km races and hopefully qualify for the New Zealand & Oceania 100km competitions.

What would be some advice you’d have for any aspiring runners out there?

Just give it a go and stay at it. I remember my time running 20km a couple of years ago, and I was absolutely battling; I was sore for weeks. But staying consistent with it and winning those mental battles is helpful, anyone can do it, I’m no superhero, I don’t have some insane natural ability. If you really want it, just stick at it.

A Q + A With Clark Fountain

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