Race report- City2Surf

A 12km totally flat race from Christchurch cathedral square out to QE2 sports stadium (interestingly and rather disappointingly about 2km from any beach or surf!). Course map here

I was surprised just how big an affair this race was. It would rank as a large race in Europe. I can only guess at moment but I reckon there were a few thousand in it. Lots of walkers and kids on scooters etc etc and plenty of joggers and also decent runners.

Something else which is different to Europe was the price to enter. I had a late entry and it cost $10 (about £4). I got a bottle of water at the end and all the roads were closed to traffic. This sort of event would cost in excess of £25 in UK and if sponsored by Nike it would cost £60+

The race:

Naively, I started too far back in field and for the first two km I was sometimes walking, sometimes jogging and swerving walkers, scooters etc. Still not really going properly until about 3km as many runners had underestimated their abilities and had slowed considerably or even started to walk.

Decided that I wasn't going to do the race flat out so for once I remained calm (yes Chris, no Mr Grumpy in this race) and got into my stride when I could. No km markers that I could see before the 7km marker so didn't do splits but noticed time at 10km was something like 45mins. Kept up the pace I was running at quite well and finished the 12km in something like 54mins (wiped the data from watch!). Considering I lost about 2 mins to walking and dodging etc and could probably have done the course a bit quicker e.g. 60-90 secs I was quite pleased with this. I haven't run on roads at all for months and have done very little on the trails really. Thus somewhere around 7min miling if you subtract the couple of mins lost.

Finished the day with the run home (map here) which took 1:16 to cover 13km (8.1miles). Rather hot though so not too bad

This weeks training (20th-27th March)

Good week for training. At this stage in the game I am not totalling mileage etc. Just need to consistently train

Started press ups and situps and have maintained 30-50 press-ups and similar situps each day

Saturday - Run up Capt Thomas' track and then onto first few hundred metres of crater walk. Probably no more than 7km running but with about 275metres of ascent.

Sunday - Run up to cave in Barnett Reserve (climbs about by about 150 metres in about 1.5km (then 45metres climb back to house!)). Legs tired after yesterday

Monday - 1 hr kayaking. Good session (described at length in previous post)

Tuesday - zip all

Wednesday - 1hr kayaking. Mostly skill session by myself trying different length paddles so little distance paddled. OK session though

Thursday - 52 mins running. Hard run around Barnett Reserve doing 2 loops up to cave and back down other side (150m ascent in about 1.5kms * 2). Second lap wnet easier than I thought it would as knackered after first and went over on ankle at top of first loop and sore.

Friday - Big day for me at moment. Short bays bike ride (40km ish at ~21.6kmh). Really hard ride as lots of climbs and wind in face a lot of time. Legs tired after yesterdays run. Followed this with about 1:10 kayaking with Glenn on the Avon. Some 70% and 100% efforts along the way

Interesting day

One of the big choices that I have to make before not too long is what sort of kayak to buy. As I have kayaked in the past (many moons ago - see previous post) I am not a complete beginner. However, I can hardly class myself as experienced or even confident when it comes to paddling one of these long kayaks (loads of volume, usually 5-6m in length and a rudder).

I posed a Q on a discussion group and to cut a long story short, I was advised to go for a faster kayak with makings and shape of a really fast one (I won't bore you with the hundreds of pages of discussion on this subject). As a light guy (60kg) I don't have too many choices.

Thus, as the kayak club I have joined has one of the recommended boats for club use I have set about trying to paddle this boat with varying degrees of success and failure. Today, having had an average paddle (getting balance a bit better) but still not great, I headed back to the clubrooms. With 200m to go I noticed a guy watching me so I set about putting my best style of paddle stroke together. I thought I was doing quite well as most of the effort was via my torso and shoulders (correct) rather than arms (wrong!). Well, as I approached the club this guy (who I recognised as the club president) started yelling at me that my paddle wasn't vertical enough. He then said I needed a much longer paddle as I was only really taking half a paddle stroke. Taking his advice I chose a longer paddle and hit the water again using a more vertical paddle stroke. Well, stuff me, I was really cruising along. The president then gave me 5 mins or so instruction and I reckon I was streaks better in that 5 mins than if I'd ploughed on by hours by myself.

It's really hard to find true experts when you need advice. The bods on discussion groups are always helpful but who knows how good/experienced they are. Meeting someone face to face is invaluable. A few weeks back I was advised to have a bike fitting from a shop with an ex pro cyclist who had designed a computer programme to analyse all sorts of things. (My wife was flabbergasted at me paying $120 for "someone to show me how to sit on a bike"!). The advice and subsequent alterations to my bike from this expert were superb and I straight away knocked 6mins of a 40km hilly ride I do.

The beginnings

OK. Let's start with a few bits and bobs about what this blog is about and a bit about me.

This blog is my attempt at recording my training, thoughts etc etc towards entering and hopefully completing (competing in?) the NZ Coast to Coast race in 2010. This is basically a race across NZ's South Island running, cycling and kayaking. It can be done as an individual across 1 day or 2 days (there is a team event but I am not really interested in competing in that). More discussion on which event I decide to go for in later posts.

The format is basically a:
3km run
55km cycle
33km run
15km cycle
67km kayak
70km cycle

The best overview is to look at the overview of the course at http://www.coasttocoast.co.nz/Coast_to_Coast.pdf


My biography (sporting)

Running
Running on/off for 27 years (more on than off). Completed quite a few marathons both on roads and in hills/cross country. Completed numerous half marathons and shorter distance events as well as a few longer distance events over 50km-80km (30-50miles).
PBs - 10km 38:50 (a long time ago), half marathon 1:27:45 (4 years ago), marathon 3:19:xx 6 years ago

Cycling
Never really trained at cycling as an end in itself. More as a necessity for competing in triathlons from 1991-1998. Not done very much until a couple of months ago since then

Kayaking
Did lots of whitewater and slalom paddling back in the 80s. Got to quite a respectable level (div1) in C2 slalom in UK and lower divisions in C1 and K1. Nothing before in multisport boats

Recent training (with respect this event)

Started cycling again after 10 year break (apart from odd couple of week periods of training) in November 2008. Can now cycle a very hilly 45km route without too much difficulty and suspect I could complete a ride called "Long Bays" without killing myself. Need to work on this discipline quite a bit as have very little leg strength nowadays.

Started in long multisport boats in Jan 09 and have had about 8-10 sessions so far. Need lots more experience in this discipline especially in terms of longer distance stuff and moving water. Live very near the estuary and open ocean which hope to use a lot once own kayak purchased.

Running has been very sporadic over last few months although with a lot of years in the legs I know I can get back to fairly comfortably running 30km in a couple of months. However, since a great deal of the run section (should probably call it mountain section as not sure what sort of rhythm you can keep up) is very mountainous and rocky I need to spend a lot more time running steep hills and boulder hopping.