It’s 6am. The sun is slowly rising and its starting to rain again. It’s loud, a little chaotic, and I’m about to run another ultra marathon.

This is the UTMB Tarawera Ultra-Trail. 14 February 2026. Valentine’s Day.

Hundreds of runners were mingling nervously in their start sections in Rotorua, New Zealand. A special place called Te Puia; a wonderful and spiritual place they say “changes you”. The music was pumping, the announcements were loud and encouraging and an excited buzz of nervous chatter rose slowly as we got closer to the start time. We were all excited and nervous.

My wife, Tara stood just outside the barriers. I walked over and stood with her out of the rain as she whispered words of encouragement. She had already joked that this was her Valentine’s Day present, standing in the rain, driving between checkpoints, waiting for hours while I ran through mud and torrential rain.

She wasn’t joking entirely. She was standing beside me because she always is. My anchor.

I remember looking at her just before the start and something shifted in my chest. A moment of realisation. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. But I did feel overwhelmed.

And I felt tears in my eyes.

Not because this race would be hard. But because I realised how far I had come.

There was a time when stress chose me

Policing never asks what it’s costing you. Yet, you push on. You absorb what needs absorbing. You see what needs seeing. You carry the loads that need carrying. You get on with it. You hold the line, and if you’re good at it, you get to carry more.

Then, over time, the job doesn’t just become work. It becomes who you are. Your competence becomes the armour you wear. Hypervigilance becomes your normal, and adrenaline becomes your baseline.

Until one day you can’t hold it together anymore.

My career ended in a way that felt like deliberate abandonment. I had served the community. I had done the work and I had done it bloody well. But when the cumulative load finally broke me, there was no cavalry. No rescue. Just silence. The organisation moved on.

I did not.

What followed wasn’t pretty.

Loss of career.
Loss of everything that was important.
Identity collapse.
Years of therapy.
Finding love again.
Almost a decade of study.
Starting a practice from nothing to help other police.
Rebuilding relationships.
Rebuilding myself.

I once genuinely believed that I did not deserve a future that felt stable, loving and secure. There were periods where I questioned whether continuing was worth it. When the shame and collapse I felt weighed heavier than hope. Where disappearing felt easier than starting again.

I know that sounds melodramatic, but that’s the reality of where my head was at.

None of that rupture was chosen.

But what I did with it was.

Mount Kosciuszko: when effort isn’t enough

Last November, I stood at the start line of another ultra-marathon; UTMB Ultra-Trail Mt Kosciuszko. It was 6 degrees Celsius, but the icy wind made it feel closer to freezing. There was even snow on the mountains in Summer!

I had trained really well, and I had prepared meticulously. My race nutrition was dialled in, my long runs completed, and my strength training was solid. I felt strong and confident.

I did everything right but I ultimately finished over three hours outside my goal time. I was physically wrecked. I crossed that line broken. Broken in a way that felt familiar.

That sentence has weight for those of us who have lived through PTSD.

You can serve well and still fracture.
You can push hard and still collapse.
You can be competent and still not be protected.

But here’s what didn’t happen during the race at Mt Kosciuszko.

I never once considered not finishing. Giving up never entered my mind.

Not once.

I would have crawled over the finish line if I had to.

That’s not ego speaking. That’s the structure that, over time, I had established for myself.

Something in me does not quit.

The Burnout in Between

After the race at Mt Kosciuszko, the colour drained a little.

Work pressures mounted. Business decisions felt heavy. Motivation dipped, and irritability crept in. I wasn’t proud of some of my reactions. Those I love most bore the brunt of that at times.

Burnout isn’t explosive. It’s a slow erosion of life.

In the months that followed, my training for Tarawera became inconsistent. Some weeks were solid. Most weren’t. Everything felt hard.

But I kept the race on the calendar.

Not because I had to, but because I get to.

That distinction took me years to learn and understand.

Valentine’s Day in the Dark

Back to Tarawera. Valentine’s Day.

Instead of dinner and wine and a day of pampering, Tara stood in the rain at aid stations, waiting. Driving. Worrying. Tracking me. Watching for my silly green bucket hat.

That amazing woman has seen me at my worst.

She has seen the aftermath of policing.
She has seen my irritability.
She has seen my doubts.
She was integral to my rebuilding.
She believes in me.

And so, she stands patiently in the rain waiting for me. Loving me.

Just before the race started, I felt that emotion rise; it wasn’t about running.

It was about gratitude.

Gratitude that I was standing there.
Gratitude that she was there with me.
Gratitude that I was alive.

Twenty-two years ago, my 65-year-old father died from a brain tumour.

I am 62.

Mortality is not abstract for me. It hums in the background. Not as panic. Just awareness. So, I am acutely conscious that time is not infinite.

But I am not running from death.

The Race

Honestly, it was brutal.

Torrential rain, deep and sticky mud. Long hours under heavy load. This race required patience, focus and persistence as much as power. There’s an old saying in ultra-running that “your mind will give up long before your body.” I steeled my mind.

But this time I chose not to chase redemption. So, I abandoned my goal time.

I didn’t chase ego. I just ran my process.

Maintain my form.
Fuel properly.
Stay steady.
Keep moving.

I ran the flats and hiked the muddy hills. When it hurt, I noticed and I adjusted. When I felt good, I pushed but not stupidly.

I executed my plan

Almost 10 hours later, I crossed the finish line. Soaked through and covered in mud.

And there was Tara. Patiently waiting, and worrying. I walked through the recovery area and found her. We both cried a little.

We didn’t cry because it was heroic. We cried because this meant something.

It meant that the man who once felt abandoned by an institution, broken by a career, unsure he deserved a stable future, was still here.

No longer just surviving. But Living.

Living Strong.

The Subtle Shift

After arriving home in Brisbane a few days later, I noticed something.

The world felt different.

Nothing externally had changed at all. The business pressures were still there. Decisions still needed to be made. Emails were still waiting. The complexity of real life hadn’t magically dissolved.

But internally, something in me had recalibrated.

After nearly ten hours under sustained physical and mental load, regulating emotion, solving problems as they arose, staying steady in mud and rain, everything else felt smaller.

Not trivial.

Smaller.

The conversations that had felt heavy now felt manageable. The decisions that had felt overwhelming now felt solvable. The irritations that had sparked tension now felt like conversations to have, not battles to fight.

Doing something genuinely hard on purpose has a way of resizing the rest of your life.

It doesn’t remove difficulty or make problems easy. It increases capacity.

For those of us with PTSD, the nervous system can become hypersensitive. Everything feels bigger than it is. Threat looms large. The past intrudes.

When you voluntarily step into difficulty and stay regulated inside it, your system remembers what you’re capable of.

It recalibrates.

Long hours in the rain and mud teaches you something the mind forgets in the office.

You can tolerate more than you think.

You are stronger than your anxiety tells you.

You are not fragile.

The difference between imposed and chosen suffering

There is a psychological difference between suffering that is imposed and suffering that is chosen.

Imposed suffering strips agency.

It shrinks time to survival.
It organises the nervous system around threat.

Chosen suffering restores agency.

It expands time toward the future.
It demands regulation, adaptation, and competence.

For those of us with PTSD, particularly from policing, the past can pull you back hard.

Ultra-running propels me forward.

You cannot ruminate at kilometre 42 in the rain and mud. You are compelled to focus. You must fuel well, and above all else, you must keep moving.

For me, trail running quiets the noise.

It reminds me that I am structurally sound. That I am alive.

Not this time

When I say “Not this time,” I am not speaking to a finish line.

I am speaking to the man who once thought he was finished.

Not this time, bitterness.
Not this time, helplessness.
Not this time, passive ageing into irrelevance.
Not this time, letting my past dictate my future.

I don’t run to slay a demon anymore.

The past isn’t my enemy. It shaped me. It cost me. It clarified me and gave me purpose.

Would I go through it again; the career loss, the ruptures, the study, the therapy, the rebuilding to stand here now?

My answer is Yes.

Not because I believe that suffering has earned me happiness. But because it forced me to take ownership and become the author of my life.

To move from an external locus of control (institution, role, expectation) to an internal one.

Choice.

I get to do this

Standing in the dim morning light on Valentine’s Day, looking at my wife before running into the rain, I realised something simple.

Hard things used to happen to me but now, I choose hard things.

I choose them because I am alive.

Because I love deeply.
Because time is not infinite.
Because I refuse to quietly fade into the background of my own life.

If you’ve worn the uniform, if you carry PTSD, if you’ve broken and rebuilding.

You don’t need an ultramarathon.

But you do need a start line.

Something voluntary.
Something difficult.
Something that propels you forward when the past tries to pull you back.

You are not finished.

So when you stand at your own start line, whatever that is for you, say it quietly.

Not this time.

If this spoke to you

If you’ve carried the job home. If you’ve broken and rebuilding. If you’re still trying to work out what comes next.

Stay.

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Because none of us do this alone.