Even her running coach Mark Edmonds believes she may be tiny but she is all motor.
Edmonds, a former marathon runner turned coach, first met Paige as an 11-year-old at Kawaha Point Primary School.
"Her teacher said to have a look at this young girl. I took one look at the way she ran and knew then she had the goods. She is probably the best I've seen in my 30 years of coaching and running. She was a bit raw but I just knew she really had the goods."
Edmonds said her parents wanted him to teach her to become a sprinter but he realised early she was a long distant runner.
"She has a lot of top end speed but she is more suited for long distance. She's not big but she is all motor, she has a huge aerobic capacity but she is very tiny."
Her coach said there weren't too many runners her age who could match her for pace over 800m. "She has always been a front runner. They've [her opponents] got to be really good to beat her between 800 and 3000m," he said.
Although Paige is currently enjoying cross-country, she thinks her strength is track and field.
"I think I might be better at the track because I've done more races on the track and I know my distances and stuff and I know what to do."
This year's cross-country course should suit Paige, Edmonds said.
The Saint Kentigern course is 2km over rolling terrain with a couple of steeper inclines. The course will be soft and the ground heavy with the possibility of some really muddy sections. The Year 9 competitors run only 1km.
Paige's form leading up to tomorrow's champs has been the best Edmonds has seen in their three-year history together.
"She won the Bay of Plenty cross country by 200m and did the same [last week] in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty cross-country champs. She also recently ran in her school cross-country where she beat the boys."
Edmonds said the youngster had a never-give-up attitude in her training and when she competed.
"She doesn't like losing but she is humble and unassuming at the same time. She has that X factor."
The youngster said she loved sport, particularly running and football.
"I really like both of them and I don't know which one I'm going to choose when I get older."
Although, that is, Paige said she would like to follow in her running idol Sir John Walker's footsteps and compete at an Olympic games.
"I did a research about him recently in English, because we were allowed to choose someone who's like a hero and I chose him because he's like an inspiration and he [runs] the distances I do as well and he went to the Olympics."
Paige's race gets underway at 10.30am in Auckland tomorrow. She is one of 89 runners in her division.
The youngster said her main threat in tomorrow's race was a runner from Christchurch who was running similar times as she was.
