Gibbs Hill Challenge 2011

14th August

With the country being hit by one of the worst polar blasts in years we were unsure what sort of day Takaka would deliver us. Not  wanting to ignore the warnings we left home equipped with loads of warm gear. I even packed the chains just in case takaka hill was in trouble.

What eventuated however was a cracker day in Golden Bay. The snow clouds swept were aside by the hills and a huge window of blue sky and winter sunshine greeted us as we entered Takaka, Golden Bay's big smoke. The Gibbs hill challenge involves a 23km road ride from Takaka to Wainui Bay (including 2km on gravel), a 20 odd km run over Gibbs hill, down to Totaranui then back along the coastal track to Wainui Bay where you get back on the bike for a return trip to Takaka primary school.

The start was typical of the Bay's amazing organisation with a lead car controlling the pace for the first 2km before the real racing began. We had a swift first ride with a few attempted break aways but nothing to worry about. Entering the final 2km on gravel our bunch had narrowed to a few strong contenders including mens team rider Cliff Bowman and my main competition Matt Ellery.

Onto the run I quickly lost sight of Cliffs pedigree teammate Phil Costley as he seemed to fly up the hill ahead. My thoughts then quickly went to the fatigue in my legs. I had 6 hours training on Saturday with 4 of those being on the bike. This was not going to be an easy day. After an hour of running we were back at sea level and I was very surprised to see Matt hot on my heels. He was having a great race. I For the remaining 50 minutes of what seemed like continual up hill running I dug deep, determined to keep the pace strong despite dreaming of the couch!

After 1:50 of running I entered transition with Costley running a blistering 16 minutes faster over the challenging course. The bike became a matter of keeping things moving as the Southerly was in full swing and unfortunately for us we were biking straight into it...

So after 3:21 of racing I was very pleased to roll over the finish line only 4 minutes ahead of a legendary performance by Matt Ellery who is showing some real form this year.

Fleur Lattimore had a textbook strong performance to win the ladies section ahead of Suzie Wood. Rach, despite 4 hours on her legs on Saturday had a strong race to finish 6th. Not bad for bugger all training!

Nelson Tri Club Mid-Winter Tri 2011

31st July 2011

Well I had another good weekend training for Wulong topping it off with our annual Mid-winter tri. The race starts at a crisp hour of 9am with an 8km paddle around Bell island before transitioning onto Mountain bikes for a 2 lap 18km circuit on the North end of Rabbit island. The run then took us on a mainly single track 2km loop (2 laps) taking in the Rabbit island pine forrest and the estuary. Although it was a frosty start the day quickly warmed up and made for pleasant racing. I was challenged off the blocks by Ed Steenbergen, Daniel Bremner and Dayne McKnight for a few minutes but after about a kilometre I managed to break some open water behind me. The others never dropped far back but it allowed me to get into a good rhythm.

Into transition I was quickly onto the bike and made hard work of the first 9km lap. Its mainly flat but the sand, pine needles and branches make it seem like progress is very slow. The second lap was far better and I introduced my legs to the big chain ring (or they asked for it!)....and before long I was through transition and onto the 4km run in beautiful sunshine.

All up the race was short, taking me around 1hr 45mins to complete but it was great to get some speed work in after doing the miles. A big thanks to Nelson tri club for putting the day on and to Daniel Bremner for falling out of his ski to give himself very cold legs and me an extra advantage on the bike.

New Sponsors - Hard to come by but worth it!

A big thanks to La Sportiva off road running shoes and Rasdex Kayak gear for coming on board in the last month. Consistent training and racing is hard on the gear and therefore the pocket. Its companies like these that make my racing possible. Thanks guys. Awesome!

La Sportiva are selling top quality off road runners in NZ. I am trying their Fireblade trail runners and the Cross lite off road runners. Both awesome shoes but I am most impressed with the Crosslite's. Grip like nothing I've ever tried.

Rasdex needs no introduction. Their gear which includes PFD's, spraydecks, jackets etc for kayaking is the baseline for quality in the kayak world. Check out http://www.rasdex.co.nz/ for more info.

Kaiteriteri 6hr Mountainbike

Thinking I had missed a great opportunity to race on Kaiteriteri's newly developing mountainbike park while at heights of winter I received a nice surprise. The proposed 6hr race had been postponed a week due to seriously crap weather. Brilliant...no excuses now.

As the day began we were treated to a typical Nelson frosty morning along with magical blue skies. The event started with a quick ride on tar seal alongside the estuary before turning into the mountainbike park and some amazing intermediate single track riding. Being a Solo rider and having taken the last 3 weeks off riding my goal was "preservation". With this in mind I got into a rhythm riding with biking guru Nick Ross (pronounced woss). We soon realised that although amazing riding, great trails, pleasant company yada yada yada that there was a lot of uphill making for a very challenging course for Solo riders. To put the day into a couple of sentences, there was a lot of ups and downs, Nick unfortunately had a mechanical after 3 hours cutting him out of the running, and I was not that dissapointed when I missed the cutoff for a final lap by a few minutes. I spent the day establishing myself into 2nd place and finished about 15mins off the pace from a formidable Tom Filmer.

A big thanks to the guys from Nelson mountainbike club for organising a top day. My legs were toast but it made for a really satisfying day. If you haven't already done so, check out the Kaiteriteri mountainbike park. Its worth the trip!

Heights of Winter Rogaine - 18th June

Well being defending champs Nathan and I had a fair idea we would be watched closely this year. The day began as per usual with a route planning session in the Culverden school hall. Its not normal for a team to obtain every control on a Rogaine map, in fact usually the top team will nail about 75% of them. This map looked different. At a glance it looked possible to collect the lot in which case the top team would be the ones to collect them the quickest. So.....we planned our path with this in mind, setting hourly targets as a guide to see if we were on track.

And heres what actually happened in short form...

We fell short by miles! But it didn't become apparent until well into the allocated 12hours. We had a great time in daylight, collecting everthing possible. Come 6pm however darkness provided some hefty challenges. The only features that could be relied on were the contours (rather difficult to make out). Marked streams were swamps and hard to distinguish, all man made features were inaccurate (except pilons) and we were on the foothills/ river flats so contours themelves were hard to judge. So in summary we lost major ground at night and ultimately the ability to defend our title. It came down in the end to strategical errors namely too much time wasted for small points early in the day and we left ourselves too much challenging navigation for the dark hours.

Safe to say we'll be back again next year much more the wiser! Check out the worm below. It tells a great story of the day. Many thanks to La Sportiva for providing me with crosslite shoes which provided insane grip on the grassy hillsides and amazing comfort. Legend Rogaine shoes I have to say.

Radio Sport interview: Rollos Nelson Adventure race

Check out the interview from radio sport at:

http://www.sportzhub.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12434&Itemid=1

Rollo's Nelson Adventure Race 2011

After plenty of deliberating as to whether I would race Rollo's or head north to the 3D race in Rotorua I decided longer less intense racing would be much better suited for me at this stage in the year.

This was looking good until I saw the weather forecast! 3hours in the rain versus 19?? I chose 19...

The day started with a leisurely 8:30am start in Cable bay. With the weather set to rapidly deteriorate we set about quickly paddling our way past Glenduan, Snappers point and the boulder bank to finish at the Nelson Marina. A building Northerly swell provided plently of entertainment as we headed out of Cable bay but all went to plan and we settled into a Rhythm at the front of the pack steadily gaining ground on "the colts" a Christchurch team up to challenge the title.

A quick transition at the marina saw us into a trek run section taking in prominent Nelson landmarks. We were then onto the bikes for the "Tineli time trial" a roughly 1 hour section of biking to Third house via the very direct "Classic track". All smooth so far we transitioned back onto foot for what would be an epic 7.5 hours trekking and well over 1000m of climbing. Continued deterioration in the weather saw us stopping mid way to put most of our compulsary gear on as the altitude in combination with persistent rain was making the day increasingly miserable. The course had now continued past Rocks Hut to checkpoint 906 where we left the marked track. This section involved following a ridgeline to Mt Meares then beyond to Mt Malita. Even in daylight the visibility was poor. We had no problems locating the ridge but finding the best path of travel kept me busy. We continually thought of the trailing teams who were now over an hour behind and would have to navigate this by dark. I also knew that keeping warm with such slow travel would be integral for these teams to finish.

Despite Malita Hut being warm and inviting we boosted on without pause into a 700m descent to the Aniseed Valley Pit stop. After such miserable conditions up high we took time to refuel before a 500m climb up to Jenkins Hill. From here we had an hour left of trekking to Third house and our bikes. So at 8:30pm (12hours in) we made haste onto the bikes for a chilly 10minute descent to the Classic track junction on Fringe Hill. With conditions barely ridable and the legs suffering we pushed most of this 300m climb to the top and the next CP. On a nice day descending Fringe is an enjoyable experience but with persistent rain and mist, and less than 10feet visibliity there were other places I'd rather have been! Aside from falling off the major risk tonight was the cold.

Into Pit Stop 2 in the Maitai picnic area we quickly refueled and set off on what we thought would be 2.5hrs of biking to the final and much awaited orienteering section...So when we arrived at Branford park for the final transition after 3.5hrs not only were our crew very tired but extremely pleased to see us! (It was now past 2 in the morning). The lack of visibility had made for some challenging navigation and despite having some great knowledge of the area new skid sites and recently logged areas made finding the tracks we wanted extremely challenging. The GPS did however smooth out several of these issues. Glad I packed it!

The final orienteering section went without any major issues thanks to Johns orienteering expertise and we crossed the finish at 3:40am making for just over 19hours of racing, clearing 2nd place by over 4 hours.

In a final note I must thank my awesome teammates: John Harris (winning Rollos at a legendary age of 49!), Tony Bateup (always solid with invaluable experience to boot), Lynley Coventry (x legend rower but now legend multisporter, amazingly strong and never complains), and our amazing crew Jo and Jack (thanks girls, couldn't have done it without you). Congrats must also go out to all the teams who persisted with the weather for whatever length of time, it was miserable out there. To all those who race on despite blisters on their feet, I SALUTE YOU.

Photo's to come.......