Finding her ‘tribe’ unleashes the power of an

Taking on challenges as she approached 50 led Michele Fleischman Dean into a whole new world of physical endurance. She tells Helen Vause about the joy of running long and often.

When she was 21 years old, Michele Fleischman went out one night from her home in the Hamptons to a Mexican restaurant. There she met a young man from Belmont.

She had recently come home from college to Sag Harbour on the eastern end of Long Island, near New York City; and young Trevor Dean had just sailed into the historic whaling port on a 68-foot yacht.

She’d met her match. Thirty years later, she talks to the Flagstaff about sailing away with Dean, washing up in Devonport and recently becoming an ultra-distance runner, sometimes covering 50-plus kilometres a day and training for runs of 100 kilometres.

Fleischman Dean is a passionate member of the growing ultra-trail and marathon-running community.

She’s buzzing with the exhilaration of the sport she took up a couple of years ago. It’s the most recent of the turns her life has taken that she could never have imagined the night she met the New Zealander she’d marry.

From that first meeting in the Sag Harbour restaurant, the pair began to spend a lot of time together. When Dean suggested she join him on the bare-bones racing boat, with few creature comforts, on a long leg to the Caribbean, she didn’t hesitate.

“I’d never sailed and had no idea how to help,” she recalls happily. “Right away we were heading into big seas and a head wind and I was pretty sick. Everyone was pretty patient with me and very helpful.”

Two hours on watch and two hours off were the schedule on that challenging, lumpy journey. But she’d found love, a mate, and a new lifestyle at sea that she’d be living for a couple of decades.

The couple went on to run boats, from small craft to the huge luxury vessels found cruising in waters around the US and the Caribbean – he as a captain and she as a deckhand and sometimes cook.

“I couldn’t boil an egg. But I learned.

They were amazing years,” she recalls.

Then life intervened. At 35, she became pregnant with their first daughter, Saiba, now 18. She managed to keep up the boating working life with a young baby until Naomi (now 16) was born.

The family settled in Florida. For eight hard years, Fleischman Dean found herself mixing motherhood with becoming a caregiver to her ailing father.

Her eyes still fill with tears at the memories of her 40s, raising young children and with long periods of caring for both of her parents at different times.

Adventures and her own interests were a long time on hold.

Meanwhile, back in Belmont, Dean’s parents, Reg and Deidre, were also ageing.

In 2016, the family decided it was time to make the big move from the US to Auckland.

In 2020, Trevor Dean bought into a half share of the Devonport Hammer Hardware business.

Finding her ‘tribe’ didn’t come easily for Fleischman Dean as she went about starting a life here. Without a circle of friends and social connections, for a time she suffered from isolation in her new country.

As the city was grounded by lockdowns, she was looking for ways to get into a more active and sociable way of living. And she began to turn to online fitness courses and challenges.

“That’s me,” she thought, “I’ll do 50 of those exercises. Or 50 of something.”

That was to mark the approaching milestone of her 50th birthday, and it wasn’t long before her new-found interest in serious exercise turned into a plan to run 50 kilometres to mark her half-century.

As the goal began to take shape, she ran into a whole new world.

“You could say I found my thing. I found my passion, I met a whole new group of great people and I just totally turned my life around once I started really running a long way and often.”

She discovered a community of people, locally and citywide, who regularly were running astounding distances – 50km, at least.

Fleischman Dean surprised herself to find that she could do it too and was soon clocking up some amazing distances. At just over 155 centimetres tall and weighing less than 50kg, she cuts a slight figure among ultrarunners. But her fitness, strength and mental toughness get her across the line on big race days.

Ultrarunning has changed her life from the inside out, she says.

“I’m very grateful for finding something that fills me with so much joy and also has amazing physical and mental health benefits. I realise now how important self-care is and that it is not selfish. Life is a gift. Find what you love, do things that make you happy. Surround yourself with people who bring you joy and support you.”

Ultrarunning means doing distances greater than a standard 42.195km marathon, and there has been a phenomenal upturn in the number of runners who are wanting to go longer and much further.

Researchers in 2021 reported a 345 per cent increase in the participants in global ultrarunning events over the previous decade, and a marked increase in the numbers of women signing up.

Worldwide, there’s been a big increase in the number of events on the calendar to meet the demand and they’re usually oversubscribed.

In part, the continuing surge in the numbers of ultrarunners has been put down to the effects of lockdowns due to Covid. People looked for things to do and had time to run – and keep running – if they could.

Chat in online communities helped build interest.

New Zealand has plenty of races to choose from, year-round.

The Tarawera Ultramarathon is this country’s biggest. It’s on the world ultra circuit, which attracts sell-out fields for each event.

The biggie at Tarawera is the 100-miler –just over 160km – but crowds also sign up to do the 21km, 50km or 100km challenges.

In October last year, Fleischman Dean completed the 100km Taupo Ultramarathon. She was incredibly proud to be first in her ride to the start line. I had no doubt about covering the distance. I didn’t want to just finish, I wanted to do my absolute very best.” age group, sixth woman across the line and the 30th person home out of 154, with a time of 11 hours and 29 minutes.

In September 2022, she’d done an 80km ‘fun run’ training for the Taupo event. But throughout the year she’d been on long runs through Auckland’s regional parks and up over volcanic cones on many a weekend with her trail-running community.

One Saturday back in April 2022, she did 127km at a Riverhead event. In that summer’s half-marathon series she’d finished in the top-10 women overall.

When there’s a big event coming up, she’s up before 5am and can be seen in all weathers bounding around the side of Devonport’s maunga and along peninsula pavements.

“I’d been training for months and was so excited to be there. It was my first race outside of Auckland and I actually had tears running down my face on the 3.30am bus

A niggle in her knee means she probably won’t be in top form for a few months yet. But already Fleischman Dean is planning to go further and for longer than she ever has before. She has the 100-miler in her sights. “Why not? I think I can do it. And maybe further after that.”

On the trail runs with her cohort she says they call her ‘the barometer’, because she lets out a cautionary squeal at surprises underfoot. “But some call me the ‘energiser bunny’ too.”

House News

We're thrilled to offer a diverse range of events workshops, and classes this month, catering to a variety of interests and needs Please check out our timetable at www.devonportcomhouse.com

Ngā mihi nui, Devonport Community House Team

What's New?

Newcomers Meet-Up

Thursdays 9.30 am-10.30 am

Our brand new House meet-up for our newcomers to connect with fellow newcomers, share experiences and learn about our community A Citizen Advice Bureau person is there to also answer questions. All are welcome and free! Tea and coffee are provided.

Bricks4Kidz

Mondays 3.30 pm-4.30 pm

After school Lego Steam Programmes Junior Robotics, Coding Introduction and Engineering

Email Auckland-LNS@bricks4kidz com

Events

COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS

TUESDAY 23 May 6 pm-8 pm

Bring a plate of your favourite cuisine to our community potluck dinner Join the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board at the Devonport Community House for conversations over dinner

Pencil, Chalk and Charcoal- Drawing Fundamentals

TUESDAY NIGHTS 7 pm-8 30 pm

6th June-11 July

Using basic materials, cartoonist and illustrator Steve Bolton teaches the fundamentals of drawing in six lessons! events@devonportcomhouse co nz to book!