Race report

Interesting two days to say the least! First thing worth mentioning was that the had to change the course for safety reasons. Over here, especially around the S Alps, the weather can turn on its head in a trice. Well, it did and they had to cancel the planned river stage due to gale winds and heavy rain. The rain didn't make too much difference to the river but the gorge section which is rather remote for about 30km would have been a nightmare with strong winds funneled into a 20 metre gap.

So, our race comprised of a 3km run off beach, 55km cycle, 31km mtn run on first day as planned then 145km cycle, 20km paddle, 10km ride.

Well, day one came and I was there with gun. With the excitement and all I started a bit fast and completed the 3km run in about 12mins. Was fairly comfortable at this pace though. What I did forget was that if I got there in that time I'd have to cycle with the big boys. I couldn't. Spent first 20km either cycling flat out trying to get on back of group or cycling by myself waiting for the next. Luckily, after about 25km my training partner's group caught me with him in it and we cycled together until the run transition. Unfortunately, I was cramping by the time I got off the bike due to my stupidity of cycling far too hard for first 25km. The run involves a lot fo river crossings (about 25 I think) and for the first 8 or 9 my quads and hamstrings were cramping. Managed to settle and enjoyed the first couple of hours. It really is a beautiful place to run- clear water, steep gorge, not too steep. It's a very difficult run though with very little good surface (lots of running on large stones and boulders) and took me an age to get to the top (about 3:25). I dawdled to the top in a training session in about 2:55 so not sure why I was so slow. The descent is quite technical and steep in places. Reached the end in 5:25 about 45mins slower than I hoped.

Weather on that first day was brilliant, a bit warm but still no wind. We had an announcement on the evening that the weather was to change and the paddle was to be cancelled. The problem with that was that it was to be replaced by a 135km cycle ride (I measured it at 145km). Having only trained for 70km ride this was to be a bit daunting.

We started the ride in lashing down rain and strong tail winds dressed for winter riding (we were told that it could be near freezing on the tops of the hills next to the start of the ski resorts). Started fairly slowly and apart from some rather hairy descents with side winds everything was ok. Didn't do anything silly this time and even caught up with my training partner again and we rode whole way together. Worked with a few groups and hit the 2/3rds transition still feeling ok. After that we had the 55km ride into Christchurch. Formed a group of about 6-8 people and I took control of the group as was sick of poor organisation and rogue riders in other groups. Luckily, everyone played the game and we rode at about 32kmh (21mph) all the way back.

The paddle was on a very tame and flat 20km of river Avon in Christchurch then the final rather windy push back down to the beach on east coast. Total time about 15:45.

Pretty tired at end as really hadn't got training right (especially run training) but pleased that managed a much longer ride than I had done for years (perhaps ever) and completed it well. The cancellation of the large kayak section is still disappointing but means that I have to go back next year!

I'm useless with training diaries

Well it's official. I can't keep a training diary going in any medium.

I have been training since my last post here in November. My training hasn't been the best although have continued to train most of the time at about 4 days a week with some sessions backtoback e.g. bike>run. I lost a bit of interest around the Nov/Dec time. Mainly just a lack of motivation. December/early Jan itself wasn't great as this is the time lots of people do time on the course but this year it was flooded a lot of the time and so we had to do other sessions which were inevitably shorter.

Did a couple of pretty good sessions worth mentioning though. One was with my mate Marty when we did a 30km bike ride followed by a 20km run (which had about 800m of climbing in it). Was knackered at end of that one!

Had a full river trip on the course (about 70km) which was knackering to say the least. far too far for me! Still, the water was quite high, the rapids bigger than normal and the sun shone so quite a lot of fun.

Had a run over the mtn course. This is a very tiring 31km run! Lots of river crossings (about 25 I reckon), lots of areas where you couldn't run even if you tried to and a hard descent IMO. Even the top guys only manage 6min km pace and that's flying down the descents (literally leaping in sections). we were slow that day ( about 10min km pace i.e. about 4:45) but hope to get below about 4:35 on the day (there is a 3km flat section to add on that we didn't do in training as it's on private land).

Had a session which had us doing 13km kayak on the course followed by the 67km cycle to the finish line (I skipped last 3km as I past our house!). I was slow on kayak but managed about 31-32kph average on eth bike (about 20mph) working with Marty. Pretty happy with that pace as cycling is not a forte of mine. The lads in front set off at 40kph which was a bit hot for me!

Any way, the race is this Fri/Sat. Haven't trained (apart from a couple of sessions) for about 2.5 weeks as just felt really low and knackered. Hopefully rested now and even if I am not in great form (I'm not!) I am at least in teh Vets section and all my training buddies are in the open class as they are 10+yrs younger. I'll play the age card!

Weather doesn't look great for the event (rain and cold winds at times), the river is very low (slow and broken boat potential) but the gun goes off at 7:00a.m and I'll be there!!