Trail Run

Mountain Masochist

Mountain adventurer and most famous as the director of the iconic Northburn 100 ultra in Central Otago, New Zealand, Terry Davis is known as the guy who laughs in the face of other people’s suffering - and he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. But there’s a lot more to the ‘sadistic’ race director than meets the eye.

The first time we met up for this article, Terry suggested lunch. Lunch with Terry isn’t your average “meet up at a cafe for a pie and a chat” lunch.

When I told him we needed to catch up so I could write this, he told me he’d pop around at midday with lunch. “Lunch” it turns out, was lamb’s fry fresh from his farm, which he cooked to absolute Michelin-star perfection in my kitchen while I distracted him with questions about where he’d grown up and how he’d got into running. We’re in small-town New Zealand now and it shows.

He arrives in running gear – because he’ll nip out for a run after this – and stands in the kitchen praising his new running shorts while cracking open a beer and cutting the lamb he’d performed last rites on that morning.

That’s Terry to a tee, farmer’s hands, runner’s legs and the disposition of someone who just wants everyone around him to have a good time.

Well, that’s not quite true, actually.

After lunch, we sit down to talk a bit more and, without the knife and fork as a crutch for small talk, we dig deeper.

Whoever knows Terry knows him to always be smiling. He’s not always been like that.

It was around the age of 14, with puberty just hitting, that Terry first realised he was depressed. Well, not just depressed. He realised, for the first time, he was dealing with self-loathing. Fourteen-year-old Terry hated himself.

One particular episode sticks in his mind. After years of getting low-level bullied at school, he’d gone away on a school camp with mates. In the bunks

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