Somewhere near the end of March – we’re not allowed to be more specific than that – Ocean Drive in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, will fill with support vehicles and nervous runners. Among them will be six athletes from a New Zealand run crew called Grave Runners, about to make history as the first dedicated Kiwi team to take on The Speed Project.

Now into its second decade, TSP is infamous in running circles: a 550-kilometre (340 miles) unsanctioned relay race from the Santa Monica Pier to the Las Vegas welcome sign. There’s no official website, no rules, no course marshals – hell, there’s not even an official course. It’s just you, your crew, and the brutal expanse of Death Valley between you and the bright lights of Vegas.

Grave Runners co-founder Connor Adams has assembled a globally scattered crew, and each member was chosen to represent something bigger: the folks back home. Death Valley seems appropriate for a group that talks about running being an embrace of life, a running from the grave.

“I had a premonition of our team crossing the imaginary finish line in arms, holding our Grave Runners banner,” Connor says. “This is probably the wildest thing we’ll do thus far, but I feel like this is also going to lead to even crazier stuff.”

From dirtbags to global community

Grave Runners began in early 2020 when Connor, dealing with personal challenges, found solace in running. “Running was very much out of necessity,” he explains.

“I grew up skateboarding and snowboarding and what came with that was glorifying drugs, alcohol and substance abuse. These lifestyles kind of made that stuff cool or appealing for when you’re 16 and don’t know any better. I think what’s shifted now is that it’s actually become cool to take care of yourself, and that’s a really positive thing. I never thought I’d be preaching this message of health and wellness and taking care of yourself, but here we are. I often reflect and wonder how I used to operate without running, I feel like I was only just scraping by.

“I hated running at first. I think my internal dialogue is still always ‘stuff this, stuff this’ until I put on my gear and get out the door – it’s kind of overcoming that initial hurdle (pun intended) until you get into it and start feeling the benefits. . Then you look back and think, ‘That wasn’t too bad, I really enjoyed that.’ That’s basically still the process after running religiously for five years now.”

Living on Auckland’s notorious Karangahape Road with Logan Buchanan (now based in London), Connor saw an opportunity. At the time, there were no community-led run clubs in Auckland – only a couple of commercial ones operated by major brands. The pair wanted to create something different, speaking to what Adams calls “the counterculture” – skateboarders, photographers, artists, graphic designers, musicians.

“Our initial intention was just trying to get the dirtbags off the couch because that’s what we thought we were,” Connor recalls. They chose the name Grave Runners partly inspired by the historic cemetery at the end of K Road, but also for its deeper meaning. “It’s like a memento mori which means ‘remember that you must die’ in Latin. I think that isn’t a negative; it’s a reminder that we’re alive and we’re present right now and to sort of be grateful and enjoy the ride.”

Now based in Melbourne, Connor says when he and Logan were setting up Grave Runners they were already aware of global precedents like AM:PM.RC in Melbourne, Bridge Runners in New York and Run Dem Crew in London. More recently, AM:PM has become home away from home for the extended Grave Runners community, as Connor and two others in the TSP crew run with the group founded by fellow expat Kiwi Ben Clement. The trans-Tasman connections expand with Subspace, an occasional series of creative activations previously held in Sydney and Melbourne, led by AM:PM, Grave Runners and Kings Cross Track Club.

Then came Covid lockdowns. Rather than derailing the fledgling crew, isolation sparked innovation. People started tagging Grave Runners in their solo runs on social media – what Connor calls their “digital relay”. “That became our digital motivator, like passing the virtual baton,” he says. “That was unintentional. It just started happening and snowballed.”

One of Grave Runners’ six Speed Project runners, Auckland-based Samantha Nicole, points out that the digital relay meant that, right from the start, Grave Runners was set up to be globally connected. “And now that we have pockets of people everywhere, I feel like I know exactly what the Melbourne crew are doing in terms of their running, or Logan in London and Lorna [Denholm] in New York – it all makes it really connected,” Sam says. “We all get really invested in each other’s races. Like, we were all tracking Lorna [Denholm] through her New York marathon, which was the day after the Auckland Marathon, which a bunch of us ran.”

A worldwide crew

Now, five years later, Grave Runners has evolved into something its founders couldn’t have predicted. “It’s definitely changed in the last two years or so,” Sam says, “because the running boom has changed in the last two years. All of a sudden every person in Auckland runs, and so there was definitely a shift where we saw this huge influx of runners coming towards Grave Runners. But I think what has stuck though is it still attracts and has a space for the non-traditional runner.”

“I’ve just recently come on on Wednesday nights, and we’ve brought back this real slow, chill, ‘we stop every few hundred metres’ group at the back, which has meant that it’s got a space for everyone again. And I think that’s what sets Grave apart from everyone else. You don’t have to be a runner, but you can be if you want to be.”

The crew taking on TSP epitomises this evolution – six runners scattered across three countries, each representing different eras of the crew’s history.

“It’s so cool that we all come from different eras of Grave Runners,” says the normally NYC-based Lorna Denholm. By chance, she’s back in Auckland when we catch up with her, and we pull together a video call with her and Sam, giving the two a chance to see each other in person for the first time in a long while.

“There’s a few of us that are there from the start,” Lorna says, “and there’s a few people who came into it as others were leaving. We’ve actually not really run together that much at all.”

Joining Lorna, Sam and Connor are Nick Phipps and Annabelle Raimes (both based in Melbourne) as well as Josh Harre (like Sam, he lives in Auckland). They each have different levels of long-distance experience. Annabelle has a 70.3km Ironman triathlon under her belt; Sam has done three marathons, including the 2024 Auckland Marathon; Josh ran his first marathon alone in 2021 during the Covid lockdowns, and last year he ran the 102km UTMB Tarawera Ultra as well as the classic 42.2km distance in Auckland; Connor has completed four full marathons and recently flew back to Aotearoa to run the 2024 Auckland Half Marathon. Nick is yet to run a full marathon, though he’s run four half marathons and probably covered this distance “20 or 30” times more running with friends.

Lorna has finished one 42.2km so far. “I managed to get into the New York City Marathon, so I ran that last year and it was an incredible experience,” she says. “It was probably the first time in my life I’d trained for something properly. I’ve always had running in the background, but it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve been like, ‘You know what? If I actually put effort into this I’m not bad at it.’”

The support crew is equally crucial, and everyone has a part to play. “I think all the roles will go out the window when we get there, but right now each of those amazing people has a skill,” Nick says. “Ash from Coffee Supreme – goes without saying, we’re all going to need coffee and she’s going to be providing that for us. I can’t really explain Billy as a person, but he’s a bit of a ‘knows how to change a flat tire kind of guy’. Always needed on a big trip like this. Ursula – wellness, mindset, calming people down, meditation, all of that. Keeping us all in line, making sure we’re all calm and just enjoying it. And then we’ve got a photographer, Kayle Lawson, who’s an amazing creative from New Zealand. And then Georgia, who I guess kind of fits in between all of those roles. But we’re all just going to be helping each other out and just doing everything.”

Connor also has thoughts, of the “it’s a (ultra)marathon not a sprint” variety. “There’s a real opportunity there for us to bind together, so the support crew will be essential for our success in this. I think with me sort of captaining the ship, my main thing is just safety and making sure we don’t lose anyone and everyone gets there safe and sound.

“It’s an endurance challenge. It’s called The Speed Project, but we’re not really going into it with that intent. If it was about speed, we would maybe have a slightly different crew, but I think it’s more about creating this experience for the people that we want to share it with so we can take these memories to the grave, quite literally.”

Preparing for the unknown

Training for TSP presents unique challenges, especially with the team spread across different time zones and climates. While Lorna battles ice and snow on New York’s streets, her teammates down under are doing heat adaptation runs.

The focus is on running on fatigue. “A big focus has been training on tired legs and tired bodies,” explains Sam. “Every time you train for something, you’re told to make sure you’re well rested. But we’re looking down the barrel of double days in the next couple of weeks – a half marathon in the morning and a recovery run in the evening.”

For Nick, who recently completed a 10-day silent meditation retreat, the mental challenge looms largest. “That physical fatigue of it being 4am and you’re in that kind of weird hallucinative state where you haven’t slept and you’re trying to just move your legs one after the other – it’s something I haven’t ever been through.”

The logistics of coordinating six runners – in TSP world, the mix of three men and three women is known as the “OG” team formation – and five support crew members across 550km of desert presents its own challenges. Team meetings span multiple time zones, and the posse won’t physically come together until they meet in LA two days before the race starts.

Lorna being based in the States helps. “Being in New York, I’ve met a bunch of people who have done TSP before, and it’s been amazing to get these first-hand experiences from them,” she says.

“I almost feel like the American mum over there and I’m like, ‘You guys are all coming to my country and I’m going to look after you now.’”

Running home

While the team downplays any pressure about being the first Kiwi crew to tackle TSP, there’s evident pride in representing their homeland. “I don’t feel like I’m representing New Zealand, but I feel like I’m representing the beautiful country where I grew up,” Nick says. “New Zealand’s always a home for me and it’s one of the most amazing places in the world. Whenever you tell someone you’re from New Zealand, people have never met a bad Kiwi.”

“And Grave Runners is black and white, so All Blacks kinda vibes,” Nick says of the crew colours. On a separate call, Connor also touches on the idea of a national uniform for the crew. “I was talking to Logan last night about designing our team uniforms and we almost want it to be like we’re going to the Olympics – a black Arcteryx uniform with 3M reflective details for night running. We’re really proud of that, and whether we’re still based in New Zealand or not, that’s the grassroots.”

Arcteryx is just one of a number of brands coming on board to offer material support. There’s the aforementioned Coffee Supreme, Knog for head torches on nighttime desert roads, New Balance for the all-important footwear, and PURE Sports Nutrition for sustenance across the gruelling ordeal. Grave Runners is linking up with these brands to show the home team some love with a trail running event in the Hunua Ranges south of Auckland on Sunday 2 March, before The Speed Project kicks off later that month.

The team of six is acutely aware of their privilege in attempting this feat, which is why they think of themselves as representing the entire Grave Runners community. “This is an opportunity that some people will never even come close to,” Sam acknowledges. “I don’t think that is lost on any of us.”

When they gather in Los Angeles in late March, it won’t just be about the running. It’s a reunion of a scattered family, brought together by a shared love of movement and community. Some teammates will be meeting for the first time, others reuniting after years apart. They’ll have two days to coordinate before setting off into the desert, armed with head torches, pepper spray (for the infamous “Dog Town” section), and the knowledge that they’re making history for New Zealand running.

Whether they make it to Vegas in under 48 hours (their goal) or not, they’ll have honoured their crew’s original motto: “Clarity amongst the chaos.” From dirtbags running laps of an Auckland park to an international crew taking on one of running’s most notorious challenges, Grave Runners continues to evolve while staying true to its roots.

*If you’re in New Zealand on Sunday 2 March, join Grave Runners for their Off the Beaten Track event, featuring three different pace groups taking on a 7km loop leaving from the Hunua Falls. *