Sunday Feb 11 |
 | Note | |
| (rest day) |
| Sympathy rest day. Went to C2C breakfast, presentation, then a few free Speights at the pub. Then back to Aarons and watched AR videos with Prong. |
Friday Feb 9 |
| Run (Greymouth beach) 31:00 [3]5 km (6:12 / km) | |
| slept:10.0 shoes: red Salomon 3D Pro |
| Spent all day at the Greymouth Holiday Park watching TV, eating and preparing for the race. Prong and I were encouraging Damon to eat as much as he could- and therefore had to lead by example.
Got out for a run in the arvo along the beach. A bit of a recovery run, but it's not possible to run easily on this beach which is covered in small to largeish stones. Legs felt ok after yesterday's epic.
After dinner we drove to Kumara racecourse and the 3 of us slept in Tim's fitted out Ford transit. Awesome campervan!! |
Thursday Feb 8 |
| Run long (Coast to Coast Mountain r) 3:42:00 [3]28 km (7:56 / km) +1900m 5:55 / km | |
| slept:8.0 shoes: red Salomon 3D Pro |
| Deception bridge to Klondyke Corner via Deception valley, Goat Pass, Mingha Valley with Prong and Matthias (Swedish Orienteer/Multisporter).
If you have not done this run then you won't understand how tough it is. It made Cradle Mountain track look like the pacific highway. The first hour is up the deception creek line. There is no track, you just have to weave thru the river and pick the best route. The 2nd hour has much bigger boulders, and valley closes in and you have to look for small short cut tracks thru the bush. I felt good for the first hour, but Prong started pushing the pace a bit for the 2nd hour. After about 2hrs you leave the valley and climb up a small creek to Goat Pass hut. The descent has parts on board walks, and the track is much more established for most of the way. But it is is still difficult running and the last 30mins you need to pick your path down the rocky valley again. Carsten has the record for this run- 2hrs39 for the full course, but Keith Murray once ran 2hrs24 in the indivdual race for the same course that we ran (it has changed slightly over the years) Amazing.
Great training, and really challenging. Coast to Coast 2008....
and yes Shep- Prong was impressive |
Wednesday Feb 7 |
| Run long (Rotorua) 1:51:49 [3]18.4 km (6:05 / km) | |
| slept:9.0 shoes: red Salomon 3D Pro |
| Whakewarwarware MTB forest with Prong and Shep. Left from the Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park- along main road and into forest. There's heaps of mtb tracks here. We ran around a few tracks, then over hill and down to the Redwood Forest. Tracks were great, and forest beautiful. Nice temp in the forest, but very humid in the sun.
Prong was not impressive
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| Kayak (Christchurch) 55:00 [3] | |
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| After the mornings run Prong and I flew to Christchurch. Met Damon and Brent and went to Aaron and Sara. We then drove out of town to the Waimakiriri River and i went kayaking from Woodstock to Waimakariri Gorge Bridge with with Aaron and Brent. This is the last 1/4th of the C2C paddle. It was pretty fast flowing, in a very wide valley. The river was very braided and you need to pick the best route. I paddled Sara's JKK Eclipse. It was pretty stable and I never felt like falling out. Had to work pretty hard to keep up though cos it's a bit slower. |
Tuesday Feb 6 |
| Orienteering race (Waihora) 1:27:27 [3]*** 13.57 km (6:27 / km) | |
| shoes: VJ Twister |
| Massed start Loop race- after a big night out in Taupo there were quite a few casualties. I didn't feel so bad, until i started running. I didn't see anyone on my loop until control #7 because they all made a mistake on the first. The next 4 loops i also jogged totally alone so it was quite boring and i was struggling big time. Don't really know why i kept going, but just wanted to finish. |
| Kayak (Whitewater rafting) 40:00 [3] | |
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| after getting a lift to Rotorua i gave Shep a call to see what he was up to. He asked if we wanted to go Whitewater rafting with him, Hanny and Josephine (jo was chicken)- said yes, and we were picked about 10mins later. Drove for about 30min out of Rotoroa, near Rotoriti lake. Some tuition then straight into the boat. Was actually more physical than i expected, it takes a bit of effort to get the boats moving. Very beautiful gorge with Grade 5 rapids including a 7m waterfall- biggest commercial waterfall in NZ. Heaps of fun, and defo want to do it again, but would be better on a longer river. |
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| C • Kayak the Kaituna 1 |
Monday Feb 5 |
| Orienteering race (Waihora) 17:06 [3]***** 3.14 km (5:27 / km) | |
| ahr:186 max:197 slept:7.0 |
| Chasing start based on results of yesterday afternoon's sprint race. Since i had a bad sprint i was starting a long way down. Went hard to first, checking which loop i was on. Saw Shep in front on my course (he had 26sec head start) and went really hard to catch him. He left 4 in the wrong direction and i called out to him then continued. I could see Jamie Stewart not far in front, but was never able to catch him. Shep caught up and i spent the rest of the race chasing him. Had a battle with a few guys but was able to lose them over the last few controls.
Good run. Equal 4th, but still only 15th overall. Awesome area, it was a shame the course wasn't longer. |
| Orienteering race (Whakaipo Bay) 22:08 [5]3.94 km (5:37 / km) | |
| ahr:186 max:189 shoes: VJ Twister |
| Mixed relay with Jasmine (1st leg), Julian (3rd leg). Mostly open farmland with some good contour detail and steep gullies. I ran 2nd leg- mostly against girls. Had a prefect run except for mispunching #11. Mine was on a small gully and i punch another on a small depression about 20m before mine. Very disappointed especially since Julian had a great run an pulled us into 1st place. |
| Orienteering race (Taupo) 11:46 [5]** 2.7 km (4:21 / km) | |
| ahr:181 max:194 shoes: red Salomon 3D Pro |
| Spa Park Sprint- I was feeling pretty tired and a bit unmotivated. But racing head to head with Ezy was enough to get me going. Unfortunatley lost time at poorly mapped or misplaced #3. Otherwise ran ok, but was a long way behind over a short course. |
| Run warm up/down 30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: red Salomon 3D Pro |
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