Van Leeuwen has just completed a trifecta of mountain bike rides all over the globe.
First up was the Pioneer race, a race between Christchurch and Queenstown, riding over some rugged territory in the Southern Alps. The event took place over seven days.
That was followed by an eight-day trek in the Cape Epic race in South Africa and she is just back from the Perskindol Swiss Epic bike ride in Switzerland which lasted for five days. For her efforts in competing the three events, Van Leeuwen (37) has been awarded the Epic Legend medal.
The three races involve riding with a partner and the the duos are not allowed to be more than a couple of minutes apart.
The three races were tough going, she admitted, and involved plenty of climbs. All up, the climbs in the three races totalled 40,000m.
Considering Mount Everest is 8848m high then Van Leeuwen has been heading uphill on her bike quite a bit.
''I've never really reflected on those numbers but it is tough on your body. When you are in the midst of it you do not dwell on how hard it is; you're just getting into it,'' she said.
''You just get your sleep, ride and repeat. You do not think about anything else.''
She said being consistent and planned was the trick when going uphill.
''We were just really sensible. We knew what our ability was. Some of the climbs were really long. About 20km, some of them.
''We kept a really good pace, didn't surge at all and we could put a sprint in at the end where we made up quite a lot of ground. We just had enough in the tank.''
She did two of the three rides with husband Johnny Van Leeuwen and the Pioneer race with friend Amy Hollamby.
She said being with her husband was great and the key thing in riding in tandem was having the same goal. Riders also got to enjoy the stunning landscape and meet different people.
Van Leeuwen, an investment adviser at Craigs Investments, finished fifth overall in the mixed team event in Switzerland in a time of about 25hr.
Her Pioneer time was about 36hr, which was third in the women's grade and she racked up 40hr on the bike in the hot sun in the race in Africa, which began in Cape Town and went around the Western Cape of South Africa.
She had no plans to return and do the three races again but said it was an amazing experience.
Despite the big distances, she did not clock up the distances in training.
''I'm busy with work during the week so do all my training during the weekend. But I do very specific training and mimic long endurance rides with interval training. There is a lot of science to it. But you just train hard and smart.''
And for every climb there is of course, a descent.
''They are a lot of fun. Some of them are quite technical and a challenge.''
