GRANT GUISE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
In the Australasian trail running community when people stand out they usually really stand out. Standing out can be made almost into a full time job, and it can feel that these personalities saturate the community, via social media or word of mouth.
Then there is the other category of people, usually who perform to a high level, that put a lot of effort into not standing out, or perhaps do so effortlessly. This is the category Grant Guise falls into, as the trail runner and brand distributor does an admirable job of self-effacement – our conversation littered with “I don’t know”s and “but that’s just me”s.
Grant’s been actively involved in the trail running community in Australasia for some time, however it’s not until you go to his Ultrasignup page that you begin to understand how driven and competitive Guise is. He’d balk at the word ‘talented’ so we’ll leave that out.
Guise was a self-confessed “awkward teenager” who started running track and cross-country at high school and discovered he had a talent for it, before engaging in ski mountaineering for years, then coming back to running with great success.
He has struggled with motivation in between his two Hardrock 100 finishes in 2016 and 2017, however it seems that 2018 has seen a re-ignition of his enthusiasm for competition and his joy for the sport.
Grant lives in Dunedin and is the New Zealand distributor for Altra, Julbo, UltrAspire and Compressport. I caught up with him via phone as he was making his way around a hardware shop, sourcing materials for a climbing wall he was building for his children, Bella and Zach.
Trail Runner: On the one hand, people say stuff like: “Running is what we are meant to do, it’s our birth-right,” but how do you run 100 miles? There
