Running can be tough but not for Whakatāne’s Josh Barry, who has found a home with endurance running after shifting his focus from mountain biking.

Barry has discovered that his best performances come when the going gets tough.

He recently took on his first 24-hour race, using his mountain biking background and experience in tough conditions to tackle the gruelling challenge.

And the result was a performance he described as the “perfect 24 hours”.

Barry recorded the fastest opening lap at the Rotorua Lakes 24-hour race, the fastest final lap and also won the lap-an-hour competition.

“It feels good to see training paying off,” he said.

While completing 24 hours of running was always going to be demanding, Barry went into the event with a focus on improving his nutrition after struggling with it at previous events.

The changes he made worked wonders.

“Come the 24th hour I was ready for it,” he said.

“There wasn’t ever really a moment where I was down like I had been at prior events, which is also a massive step in the direction I need to be to run for multiple days.”

Barry said endurance racing was as much about managing problems as it was about physical fitness.

“Running for 24 hours is never going to be easy for anyone, but once you gain a little more experience, you learn how to put up with more of the stuff that goes on rather than fighting the problems,” he said.

That willingness to embrace discomfort is a big part of what attracts Barry to ultra-distance events.

“The reason I enter these events is to see how far I can push my limits when it gets hard. My event doesn’t start until I’m hurting.”

The 24-hour race was an important part of Barry’s preparation for his next backyard ultra in January, where he will look to build on the lessons learned from the event.

Before then, his attention turns to the 50km national championships at Legends of the Peak in Rotorua next month.

After that comes an even bigger challenge – The Spectacle 100 Miler in Nelson, which will be Barry’s first major 100-mile race.

With his confidence growing and the distances increasing, Barry appears more than ready to find out just how far he can push his limits.