After spending the last month abroad competing in Australia, MacClure made the trip over to the USA to take part in the six-day Expedition Oregon adventure race.
As part of Team Kumho, MacClure traversed the 563km race by foot, bike and raft to cross the finish line in four days’ time and finish third-equal.
Despite the recent success, she said she was still relatively new to triathalon and adventure racing.
"About four or so years ago, I supported a few friends doing a Coast to Coast and thought I’d quite like to do that.
"That was sort of the first big thing I did.
"I’ve done the odd triathlon and running event while I was growing up, but never really got into it.
"I completed Coast to Coast in 2021 and just loved it and then the races kept getting longer and longer."
She said it had been a very busy month.
"[I] started off with the Age Group World Multisport Festival in Townsville.
"I did two races over there with the NZ team and those are just straight triathlons.
"The one that I did really well in and won was actually a last-minute warm-up race, just for fun but as it turned out. My main race didn’t go as well — that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
"A few months ago, I got offered a spot in a really good up-and-coming New Zealand adventure racing team.
She said Oregon was her first adventure race.
"It was hard.
"There was a fair amount of suffering — I think I pushed pretty hard to keep up and be a part of the team from the start.
"It definitely wasn’t easy, there were some pretty incredible moments and probably a lot of moments that I’ve forgotten because of the sleep deprivation.
"We had about seven hours’ sleep across the four nights.
"You finish it and then you think, ‘I’m not doing one of those again’, but then very quickly you start forgetting how much you suffered.
"You’re sort of like, ‘that was awesome, let’s go again’."
It was a big mental game, she said.
"Our team captain liked to tell us that everything’s temporary.
"You can go home and have a shower and a cup of tea at the end, and it kind of makes those really simple day-to-day things seem really luxurious, which is probably one of the things I like about the long races.
"It kind of just puts the rest of your life into perspective.
"I’ve only done one of these races, but I can already see the personal growth that comes from it."
She said there was a large New Zealand contingent competing in Oregon.
"We had four Kiwi teams, and we were all in the top eight out of 27 teams.
"New Zealand is incredible at this sport, but there’s just not enough funding to actually get a team overseas like that consistently.
"We had a bit of an entry discount from the organisers, that sort of lured us over there, we’re also sponsored by Kumho Tyres in Geraldine and get discounts at local shops like the Frontrunner in Timaru."
"Funding is a big barrier, it’s around $30,000 for a team of four to fly overseas, and cover race entry, food and accommodation.
"It’s not super well known, and there’s not a lot of money in it, it’s not like triathlon where you can get a pro or elite status.
"That is one of the good parts of it, but it does make it really hard to get overseas and represent your country.
"We’ve all probably got full-time jobs as well to pay for those races."
MacClure said the team had eyes on attending the adventure racing world champs in Ecuador in December.
"We are very close to committing to Ecuador — I’m frantically writing to any form of monetary sponsorship I can think of to make it work.
"The Magnificent, another new race by the same organisers as Expedition Oregon, is also in the cards for January."
