In December, White (27), a veterinary assistant, fainted at work, banging her head as she fell, and suffered such a debilitating concussion that she doubted she would be able to run again.
"It feels really good," White said after lifting her first national title on Saturday.
"I’ve trained just to get my fitness back and it all finally came together today."
White was not one of the runners to feature early. Wellington’s Ruby Muir set the pace along with North Island champion Susannah Lynch (Wellington), Canterbury champion Katherine Camp, Sarah Douglas (Southland) and former 800m Olympian Angie Pettie (Canterbury).
Working her way up to the leaders after 4km, White held a 4sec lead over Anneke Grogan (Auckland), Lynch and Muir at the 6km mark and began to make ground with every stride, breaking the tape in 37min 23sec. Grogan was 24sec back and Muir was third in 38min 46sec.
"When I got up with the lead girls I thought, ‘OK, I feel really good, I’ll just keep this momentum going’."
White admitted afterwards that she felt nervous taking the lead with more than half the race to run.
"It was more about backing myself and just having the belief to keep that pace up."
White, guided by New Zealand high performance coach Maria Hassan, said her focus this year had been more about building a good fitness base, after losing most of that after her concussion.
"It’s been all about training and getting that mileage in there, as the recovery has taken a lot longer that I originally thought.
"In some ways, it’s been good to take that step back and press reset and go on from there."
Not until the Waikato championships two weeks ago did White feel as though things were beginning to come together.
"I knew when I was doing workouts that I was starting to feel fit again and that the fatigue had gone away."
