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For a number of years, Sam McCutcheon has starred as one of New Zealand’s most prominent trail runners and later this month he has the opportunity to be crowned national champion for the first time at the Crater Rim Ultra, which doubles as the New Zealand Trail Running Championships.

The 33-year-old Wellington-based athlete has claimed a string of impressive results which included podium finishes in the Tarawera Ultra and a top ten finish in the ultra-race at the 2018 Sky Running World Championships .

Now after a three-and-a-half-year period based in Europe, Sam is back in his native New Zealand, and he is relishing the prospect of taking on the 53km (short course event) at the Crater Rim Ultra.

“I like how the Crater Rim is a point to point course, how it is easily accessible from Christchurch and how it is run on lots on single track with lots of technical running,” explains Sam. “But probably the main thing that has drawn me was seeing that some top-quality runners like Weston Hill, Vajin Armstrong and Andrew Thompson had previously run well in this race and put down some decent times. The course will suit a lot of people, it looks quite runnable and I can’t wait to get out there.

Raised in Dunedin after graduating from university in the city he moved north to relocate in Wellington and achieved some noteworthy results including back-to-back third place finishes in the 2017 and 2018 Tarawera Ultra while also showing some good form on the roads winning a 2017 national marathon silver medal in the marathon in Wellington.

To experience living overseas and also expand his racing options, he relocated to live in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh in 2018 and performed with pride during his time in Europe. Besides his ninth place finish at the Sky Running Championships he claimed a series of other top finishes in international trail races and just prior to the first lockdown ran an eye-catching marathon PB of 2:24:13 in Seville.

“I think trail wise I definitely improved during my time in Europe,” he says. “I was lucky to get that marathon in (in Seville before the pandemic hit), although I probably had a big hole in my results due to the pandemic and a lack of competition between early 2020 and late 2021.”

Returning to Wellington in December last year, where Sam works as a construction lawyer, he manages to fit in on average between 140-160km per week around his busy work and family life. Self-coached and carrying out the bulk of his training solo – although most Saturday’s he joins in a group with the Wellington Scottish club alongside the likes of Dan Jones and Nick Horspool – has not proved a bar to success and the elixir has worked.

Earlier this year on the road, Sam claimed victory in the Wellington Marathon in 2:30:09 and placed third in the Hawkes Bay Marathon in Napier in 2:29:22 while he also set a 10km PB of 32:31 at the Wellington Road Championships before placing a respectable 11^th at the New Zealand Road Championships (in 32:42) in Upper Hutt last month.

“I still can’t quite break 32:30 for 10km but I know I can do so on a flat course with no wind,” he explains. “It has been good to mix up the distances.”

Yet for all Sam’s exploits on the road, he is most at home on the trials and, arguably, his greatest accomplishment of 2022 was winning the WUU2K in Wellington when he bettered his course record course record to run 5:11:59 over the 62km distance.

“That was probably my biggest performance,” he adds. “I maybe didn’t have a lot of competition, but it is a great race on such a good terrain that more people need to make sure its on their bucket list.”

Now Sam is fixing his gaze on the 53km event at the Crater Rim Ultra – (the New Zealand Trail Running Championships), so why was it that he targeted the 53km rather than the long course 83km event?

“I got in touch with the race organiser Peter King and asked him which race was looking the more competitive and he said the 53km. I’m also heading off to compete in the Ultra Trail Australia in late October, so I thought this would be a good test, but it would also allow by body more time to recover.”

During the New Zealand summer – the Kepler Challenge and Tarawera Ultra are high on his priority list and he has not ruled out another crack at some more European races during the Northern Hemisphere summer next year.

However, in the short-term, the goal for Sam would be a prominent showing at the New Zealand Trail Running Championships.

“I expect the race to be quick, and I aim to get into a pretty good rhythm over that first climb and go for the win,” he explains.

“It would be great to get that first New Zealand title,” he says. “It is not going to be easy because I’m up against some very strong runners but chasing (the national title) is definitely extra motivation.”