Friday, November 18, 2005

Auckland MTB XC Chapionship - Race 3

On Sunday November 13, I did race 3 of the Auckland MTB club's XC championship. Unfortunately I didn't do race 1 or 2, so I wont get anywhere in the series, but it seemed like a good fun day out. The race was at Woodhill MTB park which is easily the best MTB park I have ridden in. The surface is sandy - so a little rain is nice - and the tracks are 90% single track and technical as they twist around the trees. My embarrasing results are here...

Here are some photos that Yoshiko took.

What's the last one? That green bike? Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought a new bike. It's a Specialized Epic Comp - though this particular bike was built for a tradeshow (to show the new 2006 lineup) so it's not exactly the same as what you can buy in the shops. In fact, it hasn't even got a serial number - so I hope no-one steals it! It has Fox F100RL forks, and a Brain Lite on the back. The group set is a strange mix of LX (shifters, cranks), XT (disk brakes, front mech) , and XTR (rear mech). The colour is GREEN (in case you didn't notice...)

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Rodney Coast Challenge

I did the Rodney Coast Challenge last weekend, but I forgot to take a camera so I can't show you what it looked like.

It was a short multisport event with 10km run, 30 km road bike, 24 km MTB, and 8km paddle. The run and MTB were on gravel roads (so not that challenging or interesting) and the paddle was on the totally flat Puhoi river. The road bike was probably the most fun of the event, with reasonably flat roads (except for a BIG hill at the end) and a gentle tail wind. The speeds were really high, and I greatly enjoyed my new aerobars.

Results: I ended up 11th in the open men division in a time of 3:49:20 - which I was pretty pleased with. One of the guys I paddle with - James Peacock - got 3rd - which was an awesome result.

I can't wait until next year! :-)

Saturday, October 15, 2005

White Water Weekend 1 - Saturday

For some reason, that I'm not sure I can explain (which is different to not understanding) I entered the Coast to Coast race for 2006. One of the requirements of that is a "grade 2" certificate for white water kayaking. To get the cert. I'm doing a course with Fergs Kayaks, which has 2 weekends down near Taupo. Here are some photos from the first weekend... :-)

(the rest of the photos are at my Image Station site)

Saturday
The weather was beautiful for our first day. We met in Burbury's cafe which has a spectactular view of the lake.



















After a lengthy (and tasty) breakfast, we headed off to the Waikato river for our first lessons.




The boats we were using were short white water boats - quite different from the multisport boats or sea kayaks that we were used to paddling.

The first lessons were about brace strokes, how to keep the boat moving straight (with our eyes closed even!) and how to turn. Perhaps the hardest part was keeping the boat going straight - they're so short that they just want to spin around in a circle.




After that, we moved further up the river (by car) to try our hand at eddies.

Sam shows us the technique of getting out of an eddy: paddle up into the flow, and then lean into the turn.

It's harder than it looks, and several of us had a swim!

Well, I should make the distinction between "tipping over" and "having a swim". If we tipped over (which was quite often) we were meant to wait, and count to 10, with our head down against the deck. Or rather, up against the deck, because we would be upside down underwater... The instructors would then paddle over to us and flip us up the right way again. Or that was the theory. If we panicked, or the instructor was too slow (didn't happen), we could pull the tag on the spray skirt, and then swim out. That was much more inconvenient because then we'd need to swim our kayak to the shore, tip the water out, and get back in. That would usually take at least 10 mintes - during which time, everyone else was waiting.











Sue making it look easy.


George getting it right.



Jules watching patiently. She's an expert slalom kayaker from Germany - and this must have seemed like childs play.

We eddy-hopped down the river for a while, then stopped near Cherry Island (I think that's right) for a snack.



After that, we continued down the river - using each eddy to practice moving in and out of the main flow. Apparently this skill is very important once the river gets bigger, but right now it seems a little weird. However, that didn't stop us falling out - even though the water hardly seems to be moving!



A brief pause to watch a bungee jumper...



A much longer pause at a hotspring. The waterfall was about the temperature of a hot shower. Lovely!




Jules doesn't need to get out of her boat to enjoy the hot water. ;-)

After the warm water, and lots of paddling, we were all pretty relaxed.


There was one more challenge to do before we finished the day. To paddle upstream up a rapid.






It wasn't always as easy as it seemed...


But eventually we got to the top.

What a great day.



Friday, October 14, 2005

White Water Weekend 1 - Sunday


The next day we drove for about an hour out of Taupo to the Rangataiki river - over towards Rotorua.

When we got there, we unloaded all the gear, and found this:



And this:


It looked like we were going to be pushed a bit harder today!

The first challenge was to get the kayaks down from the road to the river (without going over the waterfall that is). We used ropes to lower them down a dam.




Once down, we all assembled and carefully launched our boats into the calm water to the side of the dam.

Sam thought he'd show us an alternative route:


Made it!


Once in the water, we got together for a little pep-talk and instruction



Then we were off down the river. We went through lots of rapids - they seemed big to us (and much bigger than yesterday) but I guess to the instructors it was all very easy still. All of us tipped over at least once, almost everybody swam out (rather than being flipped back upright by the instructor). I tipped 3 times, and swam on 2 of those. The water was cold - so I was glad I had a full wetsuit on.

There aren't many pictures of the exciting bits - because we were too busy!



Taking a breather in an eddy (probably waiting for someone to get back into their kayak).




Jules showing us how to surf in a standing wave. Unfortunately, it was just too small and she couldn't stay on it.





Rafting together for a rough bit (the people on the ends got slammed into the walls occasionally, but those in the middle were OK)




Waiting on the bank for people to come down a bigger rapid.





Smiles all-round at the end of the day.





Is that all? Can we do more???


Monday, August 29, 2005

Coromandel Classic 2005

This weekend I did the Coromandel Classic multisport/adventure race. It was a great event, set in the beautiful countryside of the Coromandels (near Auckland in New Zealand) - and surprisingly for August in New Zealand - the weather was fantastic. I was hot, sweaty, tired, scratched, bruised, wet, dirty, and sore - but I had a great time.

This was a tough race, and my big challenge was just to finish the thing.


SATURDAY
The start was at 7am on Saturday at Thames. It was just getting light as the field of about 120 (including teams and individuals) set off for the first 22km mountain bike.


At the end of the MTB ride, my support crew (my wife Yoshiko, and my Mum) grabbed my bike and helped me get ready for the run.

The first run was 27km over the pinnacles. A spectacular course with great views and lots of challenging terrain.

Parts of it were very muddy...

And there were several river crossings (which at least cleaned my shoes!)...

The water was cold and clear - and probably would have tasted great, if it hadn't been stirred up by dozens of sweaty runners charging through it.

At the end of the first run, I was pretty bloody tired and my legs were really sore from running down the hill because I hadn't done enough running training. When I finally reached the finished I was soooo relieved to be able to sit down, ice my injured knee, and eat something.

My ever-helpful support crew, and a couple of other supporters who were waiting for their runner to arrive, bundled me into my kayak and off I went for the 17km paddle to Cooks Beach.

The arrival at Cooks Beach was spectacular - with high sandstone cliffs, and a reasonable swell which meant that several of the competitors in narrow racing kayaks went for a swim! For once I was glad of my slower, but much more stable, sea kayak.

Despite having been completely shattered at the end of the run, by the time I got to the end of the kayak leg I was refreshed and full of energy. I grabbed a bite to eat, a quick massage to ease those aching calves...

...(and a quick toilet stop - dammed hard to go when kayaking!) and headed off on the final 30km road ride to Tairua. Final for Saturday that is - there's still Sunday to come!

When I finished at Tairua, I was on such an amazing high! I don't know how that happened, but throughout the day I had been from very very low, to feeling totally elated.

I met up with my support crew - who had been joined by my step brother Craig - and we went to the Tairua bowling club for a) a beer (for the support crew) and b) a massage (for me)

(Yoshiko likes this picture because she enjoyed watching me in pain as the masseur really dug into my calves)

I also got my knee strapped up so that I would be able to finish the next day without injuring it. He did a really good job - I felt no pain at all the whole day.

SUNDAY

The next start was at quite a reasonable hour: 8.30 am. My support crew was much happier with this than the 7.00am start (meaning getting up at 4.30!) on Saturday.

We had a mass start for the first kayak leg up the river from Tairua. Unfortunately the organisers got the tide information wrong, and instead of starting with the tide behind us, we had to battle the out going tide through the numerous sandbanks of the Tairua estuary.

After a quick change transition, I hopped on the bike and headed over the hills to Whangamata . Even though the ride was only 30km, and there was only one medium sized hill, I felt really uninspired the whole way - especially since I knew I was pretty much last. I arrived at Whangamata feeling depressed and like quitting, but after a little temper tantrum (threw my shoes as far as I could across the car park) and a bite to eat I slowly got underway for the 22km run over the hills.

(There are no photos of this bit because I was too stuffed, and the support crew were a bit sick of it all by this time)

The first 8km of the run which were on a gravel road through farmland we boring, hot, and didn't help my negative mood. I kept wanting to quit, but then thinking "I'll just get to the end of the dirt road - then quit.". Just before the end though, the tail end charlie support car caught me (I was now last) and asked if I was OK. I mumbled "yeah, sort of" and kept running. Then, at the end of the road, we met the sweeper for the run - Andrew (the guy who runs through after the competitors and collects the route markers, any rubbish, dropped belongings, and any injured competitors). He ran with me for a while, and we chatted a bit - which revived my spirits a lot. He said encouraging things like "this will be better than most tail end runs, because at least we're running - usually I have to walk with the last person". That made me feel better.

Eventually I got ahead of Andrew because he was busy collecting all the route marking tape, and then not long after, I caught and passed another runner. Now I was really moving. My spirits continued to climb as I met a few hikers coming down who told me it wasn't far to the top. I had switched over, and now I really wanted to finish. No, I was going to finish.

The run took me quite a long time - and I still walked some of the uphill parts, but I finally got to the finish and by that time I was feeling really energetic again. The tail end charlie car met me on the other side (they had driven around - which was quite a long way) and said "you look a shit-load better then you did at the start!" And it was true. I was feeling good. And now there was just a 30 km flat bike to the end. I would finish!

So I set off with the guy that I had passed on the run (he caught up while I was a the transition) and the St John's ambulance kept us company!

The cycle was nearly flat, just a few rolling hills (which saw me get ahead of the other guy) and I kept a pretty high average - around 29.5kmh - right in through Thames. I finally got to the finish with a big smile on my face after 7 hours 41 on the road for the day. I had done it

Finally, time to collapse. :-)



Sunday, August 14, 2005

Kayak-Run-Kayak @ Okura

A great Sunday training with the Yakity-yak club. We kayaked up to Okura (about 8-9km) then did a train run (another 8-10km) then kayaked back. The weather was great, and the company friendly, so a nice day was had by all.



Paddling along the cliffs on the north shore of Auckland.



The beach at Okura - getting ready for the run.



Sam after the run - wondering where we'll go next?



Stopped to watch the fish on the way back.


Yours truly.