She'll be flying 18,000km to run 3.3km, but Tauranga Girls' College crosscountry ace Isabella Kirk is hoping it's the quickest dash of her life.
Kirk, 15, is a late inclusion in the six-strong New Zealand girls' team for the world schools crosscountry champs in Malta, with her callup in January requiring a hasty re-jig of her summer holiday plans.
Overnight, Kirk upped her mileage from "a few light jogs" to some serious kilometres and intense interval sessions with coach Gareth Hyett, while the small matter of coming up with $6000 to cover the cost of the trip was lightened with a whirlwind fundraising effort that included selling sweetcorn and thinning kiwifruit.
Michelle Pollard, teacher in charge of crosscountry and athletics at Tauranga Girls', will accompany the team as coach/manager while Aquinas College's Anneke Grogan is also part of the New Zealand girls' team.
There are six runners each in the national girls' and boys' teams, with teams from New Plymouth Boys' High and Rangiruru School for Girls competing in a teams race.
Kirk was unlucky to miss initial selection but got her chance when a runners pulled out.
"I was pretty happy to get the call but also real nervous suddenly because I hadn't been doing much in the way of running over the holidays 'til then," the Year 11 student, who luckily had a good fitness base to call on, said.
"Now I'm doing at least three long runs [of up to 1 hours] and some interval training. Gareth started me off fairly easy but it's gotten a lot harder over the last month."
Pollard, who is heading to her third schools world crosscountry champs, said the qualification age criteria put a few stumbling blocks in front of the New Zealand selectors, particularly at the national schools champs when the contenders were pulled from the junior and senior ranks.
"National crosscountry is our main selection race but the issue that always makes selection difficult is that to be eligible to compete at the worlds you have to be born within a three-year [range]. That age group is split over our junior and senior groups here in New Zealand and they run different distances - 3km against 4km - which makes it difficult to select a team.
"I did think it was possible at the beginning that Isabella might get in the team but initially more senior athletes were favoured. It showed in December at our national road race, where for some reason they all run 4km, that the junior girls are actually quite a bit faster."
Kirk, Grogan and Pollard leave next Monday and will spend five days training and sightseeing in London before journeying east to the Maltese city of Valetta for the March 27 race over a flat 3.3km course.
Kirk was fifth at the national crosscountry champs last year and fourth in the road race and would have preferred a few hills to break the field of hundreds up.
Pollard said based on the last two world champs the front of the pack wouldn't necessarily be dominated by the African nations.
"They're certainly up there but the Chinese have done well too. It's neat to see all the different countries taking part, and in the past this event has been in Europe or Eastern Europe so I wonder if being in Malta this year on the flat might make it a bit different. The weather there is similar to what is has been here and with most of our kids coming off track the flatness of the course might suit us a bit too."
Kirk admits it's a long way to travel for a race that will last about 12 minutes, although she'd be happy if she can contribute to the overall team result, with the top four individual results counting towards the national tally.
"If I can finish as one of the top four [ Kiwis] then I'll feel I will have contributed, having come from outside the initial top six."