The weekend with Spring Challenge race in Nelson

 Hi,

Well, we had our big race weekend, finally. After all the anticipation and training and planning. Here is the TLDR:

We left Blenheim on Friday with Twigg in doggie care and Iona and Col and all our gear in the ute. Left at midday. Iced latte at Rai Valley. Saxton field in Richmond for the registration. Picked up the packs with bibs, merch and bike numbers. And the very important maps. 

 Went to our accommodation at 15 Te Awa o te Atiawa. A beautiful new home. Lovely place. Master bedroom for Tony and Nicola. Double bedroom for Iona and Col. Bedroom with two single beds for me all to myself. 

Here we looked at the route on the maps and planned our best options. 6am start. 500m run to the rafts. 10km raft. See our support crew for our first transition to our first mtb stage. 18km mostly on roads. Then a remote transition to a 9km hike with a rogaine. Switch back to a 32km mtb ride with a huge hill and a technical mtb descent. Then meet Col and Tony for our last transition to the 6km orienteering hike. 

That's it. 10 hours and 47 minutes on the course, racing. 10 hours and 19 mins official time after they subtracted the untimed section. But we did not go slower than our usual pace in that section. 

And how did we go? Here are the details.

Rai Valley iced latte

Skull island on the way to Richmond

We plan

After picking up our pack at registration around 2pm, we went to the house to plan, plan, plan. And we pored over the maps and sorted out our best options - with some optimistic deviations should they present themselves (readers: they did not).

My room

Bike is so ready

Debrief session

After planning, we prepped dinner. Then off to debrief at 6pm. That went for an hour. Back home to eat the best meal. Pesto pasta with salmon and Tony's hunted venison. So good.

Friday night dinner was superb

I did not have a phone or watch as I slept Friday night in our fantastic accommodation. So when I went to bed at 8.30pm and feel asleep pretty fast, I had no idea what time it was at 3.30am when I woke up feeling quite rested. No need for that 4am alarm then. 

I ate leftover pasta for brekkie. With a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes. And a boiled egg.

4am brekkie

Got into my wetsuit and was ready to head up the Lee Valley well before our 4.55am departure time. It was dark as we leapt out of the barely stopped car. It was an in and out queue. Like a school drop off zone. So smooth. 

Leapt out with my wetsuit half done up and just a sports bra. Fortunately it was still dark so my modesty was preserved. Zipped up soon enough and fitted with the transponder around my left ankle. We waited 30 minutes at the start line in the cold, but it eventually got lighter so we could see everything. 

A few words from organisers that I couldn't hear. Then a 500m run down grassy paddocks at a quarry to the river bank. We ran to an empty raft. But got told those rafts were unguided and we ran to the other side. 

Got matched with Bruce, a river guide from the west coast. He was awesome. The other team with us were in a team of only two women. Their third member was injured. One was called Femke and the other melissa. Such a nice pair. They had picked up a random 17 year old young chap called Eli as someone to help paddle. Readers, he was a photographer and more interested in that job. 

Anyway, we got the raft in the river. The Waimea water company released water for this race the day before so no guides had ever rafted this. We started and went straight into wee rapids. A raft shunted us and the physics meant Nicola got bounced out into the water before anyone even knew it was happening. 

RTA

A raft picked her up quickly and we did a mid river transfer. The rest of the rafting was tame in comparison. We saw one raft on the side of the river after it had tipped completely. And we heard one raft got stuck on rocks for 15 minutes!!

After a short amount of rafting that was actually 1 hour 15 minutes, we were out. Felt like 30 minutes to me. Such fun. A wee walk along the river and into a paddock to find Col and Tony. Out of the wetsuits and into our cycling and hiking gear.  

Here is where I realised my fantastic toed Socks were not ideal for putting on wet feet with numb fingers. Sigh. 

This took us about 15 minutes. Toilet stop for me then off on our bikes. Through a paddock to a road. At this stage I only wore a t shirt. Iona and Nicola opted for long sleeves. But although it was Chilly, I was fine. Up to a bridge and along roads for 18km to our remote transition area. We were late to the party and had to leave our bikes at the far end of a special area designated for the race. So many bikes ahead of us. 

We got checked heading into Hackett track by a team at the start. Team 252, go!!

Yeah - I look how I felt

Walking

Sign says Steep. It was not wrong.

Walking

This was a 9km rogaine so you could get the checkpoints in any order. It had a steep way up or a longer, less steep way. We peered up at the steep side and decided the longer, slightly less steep way up was best. Got some lower down checkpoints. Then up the hill. This area was the site of a chrome mine. And I need to go back to explore it one day. 

Up to a lovely saddle for the last checkpoint on this section and then the steep downhill. As we went out, we encountered 6 and 9 hour teams from the 9am wave already coming in. Wow!

Back for another toilet stop and some food. Turns out I am not keen on Vogel's cheese and Marmite sandwiches when I'm exercising like mad. As an indication of my brain at this time, let me tell you I ate sandwich and sucked down apple puree AT THE SAME TIME. Yes. I mixed them up. I would never do anything like this under normal circumstances. 

Ok

Rabbit Island

This was now about 11.40am and we started the second long (32km) mtb section. About 800m back down Aniseed Rd we turned into a forestry park. This was the start of an interminable slog up to the top. Not far into it, I was already jumping off to push up step sections. This is where I discovered I have less endurance than needed. 

I think this was a 500m climb through logging roads up between pine forest. Each steep section ended up with me pushing. Near the top, my adductor cramped up. So I had to push there for a bit. Fortunately that seemed to do the trick and it never bothered me again. 

Nicola dropped her favourite cloth for wiping her brow but Iona spotted it in a stroke of good fortune as she glanced back at the road we'd slogged up. 

At the top, we actually missed a checkpoint. Stayed too long on the forestry road with 2 other teams and another one close behind. This older chap called at us from the other side of a rickety old stile that we needed to be on his side. And he very gallantly helped us over with every single bike. About 9 of them! What a hero. We would have been ages away by the time we figured it out. 

This was the point where we started downhill. It was easily 2 hours after we started this section. We were on a mountain bike track down. Sylvan bike track. The owners of the land had closed the park just for our race for the day. I didn't know this. But we had the Alpha descent to ourselves. It was a lovely route but at the limit of my less than stellar mtb skills. And seemed to go on for ages. Didn't help that I had the handlebars in a grip of fear. 

The start was open with good views. Nicola was ahead on this section. This was her jam. Iona got cramp in her adductor in this section but bravely rode it off. Wow! Then the track went into one forest. Roots. Shade. More hairpins. 

Iona was just behind a woman that came off on a hairpin. Tamsin. She fell on her already sore shoulder but also face planted in some gorse. Ouch. Her team mates walked back up to help her. We saw later they finished only about 10 minutes after us. 

This made me and Iona a tad more cautious. So Nicola pulled out a little more of a lead. But we were soon all caught up at the bottom to hear out of the park on an untimed section. 

Sunshine. A descent down Champion St to the Woolworths. Across the pedestrian crossing on foot. Under the motorway. Then along the taste trail to Rabbit Island. This was pleasant. Flat. Not a huge headwind. Despite it being untimed, we did not let up in our cadence. 

Dibbed in and continued the race along the stop banks and across the bridge to the last transition point. We found Col and Tony. Scoffed the kiwifruit and oranges. Left the gear we didn't need ( food, walking poles) and started the last orienteering section. 6km through the forest with exemplary navigation by Iona and Nicola. 

Final 500m - last dibber on course

There is that last on course dibber

They wait for me to dib

And done!

There we all go

Posing on the podium

One of the checkpoints was about 200m into the forest with no discernible track. They went in and through the gloom of the forest, we saw the checkpoint 50m away. Impressive. 

Not long after that we were at the beach for the final 500m. It was about 4.30pm and we needed to finish before 5pm to come in under 11 hours. So Nichola urged us to run a bit. Twice. Only for about 100m, and only twice, but it was a mighty effort at that late stage, let me tell you. 

Onto the actual beach for the last 150m and up to the finish line. Such a good feeling. Saw Col and Tony. Saw the little gully woman and Iona did some fangirling. Took off the bibs and transponder. Dropped off the dibber. And done. 

10 hours and 45 minutes. Wow. They took off our untimed section for an official time of 10 hours 19 minutes. 

Results with untimed section removed

We were on the Instagram

Packed up Sunday

Sunday brekkie

Bye Skull Island

Hello work. Goodbye work

Pelorua for an iced latte

Monday morning commute

We had lovely weather. Nice and dry. Not too hot. Not too cold. The organisers did such a fantastic job. I was very impressed. The competitors were all friendly and encouraging. Thank you to you all that made it such a great experience. 

We ordered pizza on our way home. And after showers we all tucked into the food. So good. Nicola and Iona talked for a bit and went to bed. But Col and Tony and I watched the rugby. All blacks v wallabies in Wellington. The all blacks won though not convincingly. For the last 10 minutes I was really sleepy. 

Headed to bed. Was asleep in minutes. Had the best sleep ever. Woke at 8am daylight savings time, which was 7am the day before. Had a beautiful brekkie. Scrambled eggs and bacon for those inclined. Sourdough toast. Avocado. All delicious. 

Packed up. Got the bikes on the cars. All the gear stowed away. Left at 9.30am.

Off to prize giving for a 10am start. And while we didn't get a prize, they gave away t shirts from last year so I got one of them.  

We heard some good stories. Heard more about the raft that tipped over and the river guide that got hurt. We heard about the 9 hour team that accidentally did the entire 6 hour navigation 9km hike. Came back to the RTA and got told they did the entire wrong one. So THEY WENT BACK IN AND DID THE ENTIRE 9 HOUR ONE! Wow. Epic effort. Heard about all the sponsors and local industry that helped run the event. So good. Fonterra did a BBQ for support crew. Tasman Forestry did not log for that day. The quarry did not work for the day. The bike park closed to the public for the day. Huge $$ support from local companies.

Then said goodbye to Nicola and Tony and we started our own drive back. Stopped at Pelorus. Had coffee and cold pizza. Then home to wash clothes, clean bikes and pick up Twigg. 

Thank you to Nicola for the suggestion and all the advice and keeping us a tight unit. Thanks to Iona for being her usual stoic self. Col and Tony were excellent support crew.  

The big question. Would I do it again? Yes. Yes I would. I might be mad.

What did I learn?

I will do anything with Iona and Nicola. I will always be in safe hands with Col and Tony.

Do not use toed Socks no matter how good they are. Your cold, numb fingers from rafting will not let you put them on easily. 

I will always eat peeled oranges and kiwifruit no matter how exhausted I am.  

I have no endurance to speak of. 

My Ascic shoes are really good. 

Dead lifts work well for lifting bikes over fences. 

Nicola is some sort of Amazon woman to do that sort of effort, for so long, with a shoulder injury. I hope she takes it for a good check to ensure she gets it sorted. Wow. 

Friday night dinner of Pesto pasta with sustainable salmon and delicious hunted venison was a great carb loaded tea for the night before.  

No injuries.

My leg has lots of wee prickle marks from gorse. Mainly pushing up to dib in. And a pedal mark on my shin from a shin busting move getting around an obstacle. Newbie! Hah!