Time to catch up

Shit. It's been almost a year since I've written anything.

This blog was only ever intended to be a self-motivational tool as part of a bigger strategy to lose weight and get active again ahead of a planned trip to Europe to watch 2013 UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Florence. That trip went ahead as planned and I had a ball. But a lack of words doesn't mean I haven't kept active.

When I last wrote, I was sitting in the airport here in Wellington about to head for Dubai on my way to Europe for a month of cycling and exploring. I'll keep the words to a minimum and tell the story of this adventure through photos.

Dubai was just a short stopover for a couple of days. Enough time to be amazed by the excess of wealth and the sharp contrast between the old and new, and the haves and have nots.

To be perfectly honest though, I didn't really find Dubai my cup of tea. The place was insufferably hot. At 51 degrees outside, at least there was the refuge of Ski Dubai for a couple of hours of indoor skiing. But I'd have to be pretty flush to sustain my liking of gin and tonics at $33 a pop at the bar beside the hotel pool. I did the touristy thing and took a 4WD trip out in the desert... together with about 50 other Land Cruisers and a good couple of hundred other tourists. It culminated in an 'authentic' Bedoin camp dinner. Tacky tourist experience at its most cringeworthy.

After a couple of days it was back on a plane and Italy. I hadn't really been that excited about Rome and only scheduled myself a couple of nights there before heading to the Cinque Terre. What a city though. The history, the people, the gelato... all amazing. I loved just wandering for hours, taking turns down interesting little lanes and enjoying the surprises that many rewarded me with.

From Rome it was a train ride up the coast to Liguria and the stunning Cinque Terre. I had booked myself a room right in the heart of the gorgeous village of Vernazza. Whilst being the most basic of lodgings, and up what seemed like a million steep, narrow stairs, being right in the village was fantastic. In the evening when the bulk of the tourists had left for the day, the place became magical. Affittacamere da Nicolina where I was staying also had a wonderful restaurant down in the piazza, right beside the water, which served delicious fresh local seafood. Ahhhh... both scenic and culinary heaven.

For a couple of days I explored the Cinque Terre. First by foot through the famous trails of the national park, walking from village to village through forests and vineyards as far as Manarola, then by boat the next day to the southern most village of Riomaggiore.

Best travel find ever, and a place I can't recommend highly enough is the B&B La Martellina. Home to owner Claudio and his big softie of a dog Emilio, this gorgeous bed and breakfast is a restored medieval defensive tower and mill on the banks of the river Arno, just 7km from the centre of Florence.

What a joy it was cycling back along the river at the end of each day. The little village had an amazing little pizzeria, where I did my best to order in Italian, much to the staffs' amusement! And Emilio became a good friend once I'd slipped him a slice of prosciutto from my pizza on the first night there.

Speaking of cycling, the whole reason I'd come to Europe was the road world championships. First up was the time trials. For the team time trials, I set myself up right beside Florence's iconic Duomo, a spectacular spot for a bike race!!

After watching Kiwi Linda Villumsen take silver in the women's race, I set myself up for the men's individual time trial down from the Basilica di Santa Croce and was treated to a wonderful display of time trialling from winner Tony Martin and medalists Bradley Wiggins and Fabian Cancellara.

The fantastic early autumn Tuscan weather continued for the first day of road races. Slovenian wunderkid Matej Mohoric went solo on the final lap to take out the U23 race.

The women's race was taken out by the great Marianne Vos for the Netherlands. The Kiwis rode a brave race, but it was great to see Reta Trotman give me a little wave on one of the laps. Reta's brother deserved a gold medal for his enthusiastic support on the side of the road too!! Cycling fans in general are pretty fantastic with their patriotic fanaticism always tempered with good humour and a willingness to enter into a bit of banter.

After two weeks of stunning weather things took a spectacular turn for the championship showpiece, the elite men's race. The temperature plummeted and I got to experience an eight hour long thunderstorm on the hillside above Florence. At the end of the day it was Portugal's Rui Costa who got to don the rainbow jersey and who broke the heart of the tifosi favourite Vincenzo Nibali who eventually finished fourth behind Costa, Joaquim Rodriguez and Alejandro Valverde. The real story though was the abysmal weather. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Casualties of the day included my iPhone, my passport, cash and a Canon 1D MkIII. Thankfully with the help of a hair dryer all made a recovery... except the iPhone.

In between the racing days I of course explored beautiful Florence, and also made a couple of road trips to Assisi in Umbria and the medieval hill town of San Gimigniano in Tuscany.

And after two weeks in Florence, having completely fallen for the place, it was with a twinge of sadness that I moved on. It was nearly a week until I had to be up at Lake Como for the last of cycling's monuments the Giro di Lombardia so I had time for a decent road trip. I'd done a bit of planning on Google maps before leaving home and my plan was to drive to Nimes in France, via Monaco, a journey that Google suggested should take about 7.5 hours.

No urgency then. I had a long and leisurely final breakfast at La Martellina and talked at length with Claudio as to how much I had enjoyed my stay. Most of the morning had gone before I finally packed the car and turned on the GPS to put in my destination for the day. It was then that my plans got thrown out the window. My Garmin GPS was predicting 14.5 hours of driving if I stuck to my original plans of avoiding toll roads!! I trusted Garmin a lot more than Google so it was the toll autostrada all the way to the French border and my plan for a lunch stop in Monaco turned into a juicy peach eaten whilst doing my best to navigate a reverse lap of the Monaco formula one circuit.

 I had made pretty good time to this point so decided to take the coastal road from Monaco, through Nice and Antibes and Cannes. This took a further 3 hours! So it was back on to the motorways until I eventually made it to Nimes 11 hours after leaving Florence.

Nimes is a small city of 150,000 but its history is incredible. Built on a site that has been populated due to its natural springs since 4,000BC, it was a key city in the Roman Empire and contains some incredibly well preserved monuments of this time such as the Arena, Maison Carree, Tour Magne and nearby aqueduct the Pont du Gard.

 

 My second stop in France was Chamonix, another long drive away but with enough time to take in an icon of the Tour de France, the giant of Provence, Mt Ventoux. Even though I was cheating by driving up, my little Fiat 500 rental struggled and I got the full sense and scale of this mountain as I drove from Bedoin up to the summit and then down to Malaucene.

Chamonix-Mt Blanc had been a dream destination of mine since I saw the 1988 Greg Stump ski movie The Blizzard of Aahhhs. This featured a segment of legendary extreme skiing pioneers Glen Plake, Scot Schmidt and Mike Hattrup ripping it up all around the Chamonix area including some incredibly steep couloirs off the 3,842m high, gondola accessed Aiguille du Midi. Whilst it wasn't ski season, the Midi was still a hub of activity from the tourists like myself taking in the incredible views of the roof of Europe to the alpinists venturing far outside the safety of the terminus. 

 

 

I had another great hotel find in Chamonix, or nearby Les Houches to be exact. I thought I was in the wrong place when I walked into the plush luxury lodge like lobby of the  Hotel Les Campanules.  Officially this place is a two star hotel and I'd picked it purely on price. Believe me though, it offers up lots of 5 star level comfort and friendly hospitality. Another place I'd jump at the chance to go back to. 

My whirlwind exploration of this small slice of France had come to an end too soon and it was now time to head back into Italy. Next destination was Lake Como a half day's drive away.  My hotel here was high up above the lakeside tourist town of Bellagio on the famous Ghisallo climb of the Giro di Lombardia, the last of the 5 one-day monuments of cycling. Unfortunately the gorgeous sunny warm days of the first half of my trip hadn't returned and at the altitude that I was, the hotel was largely shrouded in cloud. On the days I had around the cycling, I took a short road trip to Milan for the day and explored nearby Bellagio.

The great feature of the hotel that I'd picked at Como was its proximity to the cyclists' shrine, the church of the Madonna del Ghisallo which sits at the summit of the iconic Ghisallo climb. I got quite a surprise as to just how close, as it was only 400m up the road from the hotel. A short walk early on race day then and I spent my time checking out the church, local market and interesting cycling museum.

The Madonna del Ghisallo is just as fascinating a museum as its neighbour the Museo di Ciclismo. Every wall of the small church is crammed with memorabilia of the great "campiones" and of those riders who are no longer with us. Even though I'm in no way a religious person, there was something special about being at this place on such a special day. 

The crowds built throughout the day and I found myself a good spot on the barriers at the top of the climb and had a couple of entertaining attempts at conversation with a few of the people around me, including giving a photography lesson to a Russian (I think) who spoke only about four words of English. He gave me a big wave and a thumbs up from across the road after the race had gone by so I think we must have communicated okay!! 

The atmosphere built as team cars arrived to drop off soigneurs at the top of the climb and then the far off sound of the TV helicopters signalled that the race was on the Ghisallo. Excitement peaked as plucky Frenchman Thomas Voeckler came past in one of his trademark adventures off the front of the peloton. Just half a minute or so came the peloton containing all the favourites including new world champion Rui Costa in his first outing of the rainbow jersey. And the crowds cheered and supported every rider as they came through right down to the very last battered and bloodied MTN-Qhubeka rider.

 

 

And then the crowds on via Gino Bartali quickly dispersed, heading for their homes or the nearest bar to watch the finale on TV and see Joaquim Rodriquez take a victory. It was clear from the considered nods and expressions of the many more elderly locals who had packed out the bar of my hotel that Rodriguez's was a fine victory too.

This pretty much drew my holiday to an end. The next day I drove back to Florence to drop off my rental car and to catch the high speed train back to Rome for a final day of sightseeing before flying home.

I don't know when I'll be back in Europe. I hope I don't have to wait too long.

Happy Days

Another month, another road trip to Taupo and another half marathon. The third and final run in the 63.3 – 3 halves in 3 months series was the Kinloch Off-Road Challenge.  I went into this one feeling a lot better and healthier than the previous one a month ago. Just being healthy at the start line makes running 21+ kilometres that much less daunting. 

Kinloch threw up a pretty nice course. Double and single track through re-generating native bush on the Kinloch to Whakaipo Bay and Headland Loop tracks.  Nothing very technical and whilst the first half is pretty much climbing most of the way none of it is very steep. The toughest hill was the ridiculously shaped bridge over the marina less than a kilometre from the finish!!

I hadn’t quite done the running miles that I’d liked to have done in the weeks prior. But in the runs I had done I’d been noticing some quite big gains in speed and ability to recover. I’d also been able to clock up some pretty decent days on the bike. 

Having done my first off-road half marathon – the Tauhara Trail Run – two months earlier in 3:14 I felt confident that setting a target time of 3 hours was an achievable goal. Once underway and knowing that there was a lot of climbing to do in the first half I settled into a steady, comfortable rhythm  with those of similar pace. Even with a couple of photo stops along the way to pick up some snaps of the awesome Lake Taupo vistas that 3 hour target was never in jeopardy. 

 

Despite suffering a bit in the last 2 or 3 kilometres, no doubt due to the lack of longer training runs, I crossed the finish line in a satisfying 2:47.

Now the reality has sunk that I’ve achieved  what seemed like an incredibly lofty goal a few months ago for someone who just over 6 months ago weighed a very unhealthy 131kgs, of doing not just the Wellington half marathon  but then following this up a just a couple of weeks later with the first of the 63.3 series races.  So in just over three months I’ve run four half marathons – two on road and two off road, and in doing so dropped a pretty satisfying 29kg. 

I’m pretty much done with road running I think… it’s incredibly boring compared to trail running which I love.  I might do the 63.3 series again next year which will entail one on road event but I don’t see myself turning down the profitable few hours photographing the Wellington half as I did this year!

The next challenge for me is now a few months away in December. The fearsome Goat on Mt Ruapehu – a half marathon between Whakapapa and Turoa skifields with over 1,000km of vertical ascent! I’m also following this up with the Tussock Traverse – 26km around Ruapehu from Tukino skifield to the Chateau Tongariro. I’m also entertaining thoughts of adding the Routeburn Classic to my running bucket list. Maybe not next year but if things go well then I think I might have a crack at it in 2015.

First up though a holiday. This blog is being posted from the Koru lounge at Wellington Airport as I head off for an adventure in Dubai, Italy and France with plans to do a lot of photography, walking, bike race watching and the odd spot of running along the way.

Death warmed up

Mizuno Taupo Half-Marathon

What is it with getting sick ahead of big events? I suffered through the after effects of a head cold in the Wellington half-marathon back in June and on the Thursday before the Taupo half-marathon of last week the signs were not good… there was that tingle in the throat and general feeling that something wasn’t right with body. By Saturday I had a full-blown head cold again. Ever optimistic that I might wake up feeling better for the run on Sunday I hopped in the car for the long drive up to Taupo.

The general plan upon arrival would have been to register for the run and then spend the rest of the afternoon indulging in some photography. The camera never came out of its bag though. Instead, after a stop at the supermarket to grab supplies for the drive home again, I retreated to my motel room and the comfort of bed, TV and some music on my laptop.  Come morning, after a restless night coughing, I was worse not better.  I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower where a decent coughing fit began to expunge my body of all the horrible fluoro shit that had built up in my throat overnight.  Despite this, I continued dressing to run and headed on down to the start area.  I was early enough that I had a good 45 minutes to contemplate my state of health and decide whether or not to pull the plug. To be honest I felt like shit and when I turned on my Garmin my heart-rate was about 30 beats a minute higher than it should have been. In hindsight I should have accepted the signs and withdrawn from the run with my dignity intact. However, the thought of driving such a long distance to not run combined with the mood setting sounds of Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 album (possibly one of the greatest live performance albums of all time I might add), saw me leave the warmth of the car and head on down to the start line.

This day offered up perfect conditions for running. It was cool, overcast and there was barely a breath of wind. The course itself was fantastic! Out along the highway (for the most part) to the turnaround at 5 Mile Bay past the airport and back again along the waterfront reserve to the finish at Tongariro Domain in the centre of town.  It‘s a shame that my body wasn’t in sync though. I set off at an easy pace and felt pretty ok considering. But I noticed that whilst my heart rate was high whilst sitting in the car doing nothing, I now struggled to get it up to what I expect when I’m running. Typically I run with a heart-rate in the high 150s to low 160s range.  Today it seemed like 145 was an impenetrable barrier. But I battled on… at a slower pace than I’d hoped for.

The end came pretty quickly once the coughing started at about 15 kilometres in. I went from feeling averagely below par to like death in an instant. Then, just before the 18km mark, for the first time in an organised road event, I found myself reduced to a humiliating walk and any chance of maintaining any semblance of a respectable time rapidly disappeared. I tried to muster little bursts of running (if you could call it that), but it was a struggle and the small rise from the marina up to the Tongariro Domain entrance loomed like a cliff face. I battled on and managed to jog the last few hundred metres to the finish line. 

The finisher’s medal just added to my burden. It didn’t feel deserved. I felt humiliated and destroyed, not relieved and proud to have achieved another half-marathon result. 

I stumbled back to the car now facing the daunting prospect of having to drive the 4 ½  hours back home to Wellington. Firstly though I had to summon the courage to respond to the texts of encouragement and congratulations that had been building up on my phone while I was out on the road. I hope I put on enough of a brave face with my responses to those who were supporting me!

In at least one good moment of forethought I had loaded the car with an ample supply of liquids and sugary treats to rapidly recharge the body, and to keep it going for the trip home. First up was a can of Red Bull… gone in a matter of seconds as I struggled into some warm dry clothes. Knowing that there was no way that I could just turn on the engine and drive away as I had done after the Tauhara Trail Run a few weeks earlier, I just sat in the driver’s seat suckling on a bottle of water and scoffing back a banana and the occasional wine gum or M&M.  I might have even had a nap. At least I wasn’t alone in suffering. The person in the car parked alongside arrived back shortly after I did, hopped in and fully reclined her seat for a proper sleep. She was still in this position when I finally had the strength to face the drive home, after a good hour plus of rest and replenishment.

 I survived the drive home and even made it to work the next day. But only for a couple of hours. I was in a bad way and spent the next couple of days moving only between bed and the couch!!

So half-marathon number three of 2013 is going to be remembered for all the wrong reasons. At least by finishing I now have two of the three events needed for the 63.3, three halves in three months series in the bag. Next up is the Mizuno Kinloch Off-Road Half Marathon on 7 September. Then, 4 days after that I’m taking a break and it’s off to Italy for a month for the UCI Road World Championships and the race of the falling leaves – the Tour of Lombardy.

Meanwhile on another much better day...

I’m liking my new philosophy of enjoying my time on the bike, rather than slogging out mile after mile and the associated suffering that goes with it.  One recent ride in particular reflected this enjoyment.

I had been a bit perturbed since signing up for Strava back in March that my longest ride was only 38 kilometres… or in cycling terms, not much more than a jaunt to the shops and back. I felt I needed to do something about this. So one Saturday, with rain just starting to fall at home I decided to throw the bike in the car and go see what the weather was like over in the Wairarapa. 

The first challenge I had to overcome was the till then unanswered question of whether a road bike will fit in the back of a MINI Cooper S.  Thankfully the answer is yes. With both wheels off, there’s no problem at all taking a one person cycling road trip!

Martinborough, in its usual fashion, offered up weather that was considerably nicer than Wellington. Whilst it had obviously been raining lightly that morning, by the time I parked up at the Square, the cloud was beginning to lift and there was not even a sniff of a breeze.  I had a course in mind that, according to Garmin Connect, would offer up a nice loop to Gladstone and back of around 65km. Rolling out of town, past the golf course and vineyards, it was good to be underway on a ride that I’d been planning in my mind for a very long time. 

I pulled out the iPhone pretty early on and started snapping off photos as I rode along. In the 5 years that I’ve had my Specialized Tarmac, I’ve never been particularly confident about riding no handed on it, whereas on my previous Avanti I felt I could pretty much cruise along indefinitely without having to touch the handlebars. I don’t know what’s changed… maybe the nearly three years of essentially no riding, but today I finally think I’ve mastered the no-hands riding on the Specialized.  Which is great, as it means significantly less slowing down is required to remove and stash gloves, get iPhone out of pocket and then snap off a few photos. Trouble is now that I’ve got the cycling bug again, I’ve already started eyeing up new bikes, which will undoubtedly mean a subtle change in geometry and balance and a whole no-handed learning curve all over again!!

The only drama of the ride was a complete rookie error on my own part. As I had been intending originally to just ride from home but then changed my mind fairly quickly as the rain arrived, I just threw my bike into the car without first removing the two full bidons of water that were intended to keep me hydrated. Of course they leaked on the drive to Martinborough, which I discovered about half an hour into the ride as I went to take a drink and found that my first bidon contained only about three mouthfuls of water. Ok, not a big problem I thought. The nozzle was open and it leaked, so what… the second one looks closed. I should be sweet. But no… it was in fact completely empty, which I discovered just past the halfway mark. 

If this ride had been a serious hammer fest, or it had been a hot day this would have been a more serious problem. I did think about turning around at that point and heading back to the Gladstone Pub which I’d passed a kilometre or two before, to see if they’d be gracious and allow a refill. But I was feeling pretty comfortable in cruise mode anyways and it was less of a problem than a “fuck you’re an idiot” moment, so I just sucked back an energy gel and carried on regardless. The bottle of water in my car I’d packed for the drive home tasted pretty damn good and didn’t last long though!!

The back roads of the Wairarapa are cycling nirvana. Quiet, generally in good condition and with a variety of terrain to choose from. This particular ride was in general pretty flat – out along Hinakura and then the Masterton-Martinborough Roads as far as Gladstone, and then back via the slightly busier Ponatahi Road. When I rolled back up to my car which was parked at the Square in Martinborough, my Garmin Edge 500 computer had just ticked over 66km with a total elevation gain of just 277m.

I’ve plotted out a couple of other courses out this way and I hope to make more regular trips over the Rimutaka Hill to enjoy some more traffic free, scenic riding.

Half and half

First Half 

As I wrote my last post I was one week out from my first half marathon of the year - the Shoe Clinic Wellington Half Marathon... and I was coming down with a cold.

That cold hit pretty hard and for three days I felt like utter shit. After a primo bike ride on the Saturday afternoon I just struggled to get warm for the rest of the day. The next morning it was all on and I was moving no more than the distance between bed and the couch. By Wednesday, I was feeling up to returning to work but running was pretty much off the cards for the entire week. So come Sunday morning on the start line I wasn't really feeling to choice about the 21.1km of pounding the road ahead.

Run courses don't really get much flatter than this one. The biggest climb is the ramp back up to the stadium concourse at about 400m to go. The rest of it is pretty much pan flat, out and back around the Wellington waterfront and Evans Bay. The biggest factor that comes in to play, external to one's own physical condition, is the weather. The day before it was as shit as Wellington gets really... it literally rained all day and was frigidly cold. I was about ready to pull the plug if it hadn't eased off by morning. Thankfully it had and the run kicked off under overcast skies and into a cool and gusty southerly.

The first 7 or 8km were knocked out with nary a care in the world but from then on I began to feel the effects of having a glugged up head and my pace began to consistently tail off with each kilometre passed.

By kilometre 18, I was well and truly in the hurtbox. Thoughts had turned to the opportunity cost of this versus just about any other activity, and jealousy of the people sitting in the cafes along Oriental Bay. It became a struggle to keep the legs ticking over. Walking is not an option on a course this flat... walking would be giving in to the pain. I tried to force a positive thought into my mind and focused on just how good the hot spa at home would feel.

So struggle through I did and a little adrenalin boost carried me up the stadium ramp and over the finish line. The emotions were mixed at this point. There was the satisfaction of having finished, tinged with the disappointment of missing my target time by nearly 20 minutes (having not recovered from my cold, I can't really let this haunt me). Then came the soul destroying clincher.... as I hopped into the car my partner broke the news that a power surge in the recent storm had triggered an overload cut-off on our spa pool. She had turned it back on but there was no way it would have heated up enough for me by the time we got home. At this point, if it wasn't for the delicious, warm latte from Milk Crate that she had bought for me I think I would have cracked emotionally.

The detail:
Distance - 21.48km
Climbing -  116m
Calories burned - 2,300+

Second Half

Fast forward 2 weeks and I find myself in Taupo for half-marathon number two - the Tauhara Trail Run. I love Taupo - the lake, the mountains, the forests... it has everything outdoorsy so close at hand. I used to spend a lot of time here and it's always good to return. Even on an overcast  winter's day such as I had they day I arrived, there's still something special about the town.

Race day dawned a stunner and the start area under Mt Tauhara got to witness a spectacular sunrise. I watched from the warmth of my car after picking up my race pack and a tasty latte.

It was a crisp 4.5 degrees when proceedings got underway. Perfect once warmed up, but cold enough to start the run in a jacket and gloves. We set out across farmland and down my end of the field there were a couple of the usual standstill bottlenecks as several hundred people tried to squeeze through narrow farmgates all at the same time. But by the time we hit the forest proper the field was pretty well spread out and I easily sat into a good rhythm for the first few kilometres.

After about 4 or 5km we left the forestry road and headed up a short steep climb into a fantastic section of single track that twisted and turned through the pine forest. At this point, the first of the 10km runners started to come through. I had a moment of age envy as a kid came flying past like he ws doing parkour!! I thought about trying the same technique of leaping off every berm and drop but decided that I'd rather sleep tonight in my own bed back in Wellington and not Taupo hospital.

In the midst of this section was local freelancer Allan Ure, who had set up a couple of strobes to get some fantastic action shots of the runners.

photo: Allan Ure, photorecall.co.nz

 This fantastic flowing singletrack came to an all too sudden end after a couple of kilometres. At this point the 10km course split off and whilst it was a little tempting to slack off and join them, I managed to follow the half marathon arrows back onto a gravel forestry road. Shortly, this road began to tilt upwards and carried on so for a solid couple of kilometres. By now I was down to a walk on the climbs to conserve energy knowing that we weren't yet at the halfway point. A good chunk of this was an out and back section though, which was morale building knowing that for as long as we had to climb, there was going to be a fun chance to stretch the legs on the run back down again.

At the bottom of the descent, and through the halfway point, it was a hard left back into the pines  and a long undulating singletrack section with some mint switchbacks and long periods of solitude with runners now well and truly spaced apart. This section felt endless, but the kilometres slowly ticked past. When the track finally popped back out of the forest and onto another gravel road, thoughts turned to what was coming up.

The final climb was described by the organisers as an "honest climb but not a technical one, so get the head down and guts it out".  Or not... With 18km in the legs I took the option of grabbing a drink and instead of putting the head down and gutsing it out I settled into a casual walk, answering a couple of texts and snapping off an Instagram selfie for Facebook. I was hurting a bit by now, but was nowhere near the survival mode of the Wellington half two weeks earlier.

The top of this climb marked the highest point of the course, at 648m on the flank of Mt Tauhara. It also offered up a glimpse of the cars and tents down at the start/finish area, some 1.5km off in the distance.  That 1.5km was all downhill too. Time to kickstart the muscles and get the body running again, dodging cowpats up to and over the finish line.

photo: photorecall.co.nz

photo: photorecall.co.nz

I was pretty stoked to finish this one and still be in pretty good shape. I'll never be competitive in running so it has to be something that's enjoyable. Whilst this was the longest trail run I've ever done, and I found it pretty hard at times, I did enjoy myself and I'll definitely be back again next year. The reward for finishers was a bonus too... a cold cider and a bbq sausage. Thumbs up for that! They hit the spot before I had to jump in the car for the long drive back to Wellington. The big bonus of the day was that, unlike after the half two weeks ago, the spa pool was hot and ready when I got home!!

The detail...

Distance - 21.61km
Climbing -  771m
Calories burned -3,000 odd.

Next event: 4 August - Mizuno half-marathon, Taupo.

Running and riding

What a finish to the Xterra Wellington series last weekend. Light rain combined with what I found the most technical and slippery of the four events in the magnificent Meridian Energy West Wind Recreation Area and surrounding wind farm.

This course had a mix of everything. Single track through pine forest and native bush, narrow slippery sheep tracks traversing steep grassy slopes, assault course like ducking around and under fences and manuka bushes, and brutally steep climbs covered in thick, heavy clay mud. One of the descents was a 300m scramble down at an incredible -38.2 degrees. If you don't steep degrees... think cliff! One of the competitors, a much faster one than me at that described the climbs as cliffs too... muddy ones. The organisers weren't joking at the briefing when they described the day's two main climbs as being walkable in 15 minutes and unlikely to be runnable, but if you tried, would probably take 20 minutes!

Shoe choice was critical today. The aggressive tread pattern of Salomon's Speedcross 3s gave an added confidence as people slipped around me left, right and centre. But even then, I still had the odd moment of scrambling to maintain balance with the odd slip here and there. In some places slipping was definitely not advisable, with a long tumble to the bottom of the hill the likely result.

This was a tough end to a great series. Despite the weather and the hard course, there were still a lot of smiles on the faces of the competitors, my own included. Probably helped by the fact I remembered to suck back a couple of gels on the way around. This kept the dreaded hunger knock at bay thereby avoiding the suffering that I encountered in the last few kilometres of round 2 in the Orongorongos.

It's kind of a shame that Xterra is only four races. But I'm sure next year will roll around in no time. For now though, my running focus shifts to half-marathons with the Wellington half next weekend and then the Tauhara Trail Run up in Taupo two weeks later.

Round 4 - Xterra Wellington.
Distance: 11.2km
Climbing: 605m

Logan Ackers (aka. Buffman) put together a cool video of the run and I trot past the camera a couple of times.

The other cool thing this week was I found the motivation to dust off the road bike and do the commute from home in Newtown to work in Johnsonville, about a 35km round trip - up Ngauranga gorge on the way and down Ngaio gorge on the trip home. All this running is obviously doing the body some good. Aerobically I felt awesome and I found it all pretty easy (especially compared to last time I rode just after Xmas), so much so that I did it a second day as well.

So with barely a breath of wind yesterday, I figured I should make the most of it and I went for a spin around Lyall Bay, Miramar peninsula, up over Mt Crawford and back again. All up about 36.5km and 315m of climbing. 

In keeping with my declared philosophy of keeping my cycling fun, it was a slow ride with lots of photo taking on my iphone as I cruised along. In fact a photo essay is probably the best way to sum up what was a most enjoyable ride.

Quiet roads around Mahanga Bay. Roadie bliss...

I did thank you...

A pause to take in the scenery...

Alongside Burnham Wharf very close to where a sprint finish to a local club race went horribly wrong in 2007 and left me with a broken back and 6 months on crutches...

The cycling selfie. I may be fat and slow but I make sure I look pretty damn pro...

The view from Mt Crawford...

Photography, is a great passion of mine. Thankfully when I'm not running or cycling I pull out something more serious than an iPhone and spend a bit more time planning my shots. Last weekend I took a morning drive over to Featherston and down Western Lake Road, an area of the Wairarapa I'd never visited before.

Lake Wairarapa. Canon 1DMkIII, EF70-200mm f/2.8L and 10-stop ND + CPL long exposure. Processed in Adobe Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro...

Fence in the bush. Canon 1DMkIII, EF70-200mm f/2.8L. Processed in Adobe Lightroom...

Derelict house south of Cross Creek. Canon 1DMkIII, EF70-200mm f/2.8L. 5 exposure HDR. Processed in Adobe Lightroom, Photomatix Pro and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2...

And to finish, Western Lake Road. Panasonic Lumix GX1. 3 exposure HDR. Processed in Adobe Lightroom, Photomatix Pro and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2...

There's so much photo potential over in the Rapa. I must schedule in some more time to do a bit more exploring with the camera (and maybe the bike).

Meanwhile the mind shifts back to running. I just need to shake the cold that's sprung out of nowhere.