World Champs: Michael Sutton
"and general indifference to some of the amazing things New Zealand athletes are doing in the sport is very disappointing"
Michael Sutton is another member of the Merrell NZ Performance team. He’s been applying his trade on the World Cup circuit through Europe for the last couple of seasons, and is a keen student of the sport. Check out his Substack for more in-depth posts on Mountain Running.
I asked as many of the Kiwi team to fill out a short Bio and answer 10 questions from a pool of about 30, so us suckers back home have a better idea of who we’re supporting over in the Pyrenees.
Take it away, Michael!
Michael Sutton
Hometown: Mount Maunganui
Club: Athletics Tauranga
Coach: John Bowden
Nickname(if any): Sutton
Notable Race Results Last 2 Years:
2nd Matterhorn Ultraks Active 2025
14th Chongli World Cup Uphill 2025
1st NZ 3k Steeples 2025
2nd NZ Uphill Mountain Champs 2025
2nd NZ Up and Down Mountain Champs 2024
1st Montee du Grand Ballon 2024
1st Croatian Mtn Running Champs 2024 (visitor)
2nd Australian Mountain Champs 2024 (visitor)
1st Tarawera UTMB T21 2024
What Race/s are you Running At Worlds:
Uphill and Classic, fingers crossed
Number of World Champs competed at:
2 (Chiang Mai, Thailand and Innsbruck, Austria) This will be my 3rd.
10 Quickfire Questions With Michael
Burger or pizza?
Chicken Burger
Uphill grind or downhill send?
This season its been downhill sends.
Favourite post-race feed?
Enchiladas
All-time sporting hero (any sport, dead or alive)?
Shane Bond
What was your first ever trail/mountain race?
Tauranga Trail Run at the TECT All Terrain Park in 2011
Proudest running moment?
Crossing the line 3rd in the World Schools Cross Country 2010.
What’s the hardest race you’ve ever run?
Montee du Nid D'Aigle or The Goat
What's something you think people over value when it comes to trail running?
Non-specific Training and Overdoing it.
What's something you think people undervalue when it comes to trail running?
Sleep, Rest and the impact of outside stress on training
What does it mean to pull on the black singlet and rep NZ?
On the positive side being part of a team full of highly motivated athletes and managers who have work really hard to get here.
On the negative side the lack of support given to mountain and trail running discipline by the federation and general indifference to some of the amazing things New Zealand athletes are doing in the sport is very disappointing.
Have you had a chance to get on the course? What were your takeaways from that?
Have been on both, the uphill is 5.5kms of squiggly and runnable terrain with a last 500m of up the guts vert >30%.
The up and down starts with a fast 700m on the road before the trail of 30-40 switchbacks and then goes back down 30-40 switchbacks on the otherside swinging around trees
Awesome, thanks for that, Michael! Fingers crossed you come good in time for World Champs!