'Almost' a podium!!

Well, not quite, we missed it by 1 hour 16 minutes, but 6th out of 22 in the veteran's category was pretty shit hot!

Firstly a catch up. I'll add photo's later.

The week leading up to the autumn challenge, was a bit muddly, it was the school holidays, which meant children at home full time. It has also been extremely stressful - we are building a new cowshed, which is going to cost over 2 million dollars. It has been really dry, so milk production is down, and with the payout for milk down, banks are getting a little stroppy. So Brian and I needed a bit of time out.

I had a cunning plan. We had cheap accommodation in a flash hotel, so I booked two nights for Brian and me. I suggested we go mountain biking in the Rotorua trails - two reasons - doing something active, and (secretly) hiring a bike with disk brakes to show Brian how much better they are.

We enjoyed the trails - Brian didn't want to venture off anything greater than Grade 2. Afterwards I suggested we should look at bike shops. The second one we went to 'browse' in had some good discounts on last years bikes. So surprise surprise! I ended up with a new bike. We can't really afford it, but we also couldn't afford me to break a leg or something else on my next adventure race. So I have a Giant Talon, which I got for $1399. It was the bee's knees during the race.

The race:

It was a rush to get back from Rotorua, organise kids, gear, myself, and get off to Taupo. Janie arrived at 12.30, we finally got going at about 1. My new bike in tow.

I'm pleased we left early, as there was a really bad accident just north of Taupo, which we must have only just missed.

We arrived in Taupo to find our accommodation in a gorgeous house - wow!

Sorted out some food, then went to the venue, which was 1 hour 10 minutes drive on the Taupo-Napier highway. We arrived, registered, caught up with friends also racing, and got our instructions. Fairly straight forward - run to raft, raft 11 km, bike 30 and run 12km. Expected winning time 6 hours, with last teams expected in 12 hours.

We got back to Taupo and caught up with Barbara and her husband Kerry, our support person.

Had a great sleep, and got up a 5 am. I had read the map and instructions really well, and was feeling confident about navigation.

We arrived at Mountain valley to start - got our wetsuits on, and waited for the start - we were off on a short 1.5 km run to the rafting start. One poor lady twisted her ankle in the first 100m - the end of her day - her team ended up as a DNF, so sad for them.

We were near the back by the time we got into our raft. Silly me put my life jacket on inside out - couldn't believe it!

We made up heaps of 'ground' though. Our guide (Canadian) Andre was great.

We finished in 2 hours, then ran to transition. Kerry had set this up really well. Out of our wetsuits, and into mountain biking gear. On to the bikes and I found my seat not right (never have new gear on race day!!!)

The first 500m was up hill - not nice after sitting on a raft for 2 hours! Uphill was the flavour of the first 2 hours - once we got off the roads, it was UPHILL to 800m above sea level. We pushed our bikes most of the way. I started cramping up at this stage, which made me cross, as it got progressively worse.

The down hill was amazing! We had to dodge big pumice rocks on a steep downhill. We were catching up with teams. We then had to stop and cross SH5 in quite a dangerous spot. Over the road and more down hill. We passed at least 5 teams, and only had one pass us! A few undulations, and we had a steep downhill, which we decided to walk - it would have been a bit scary otherwise! Back on the bikes, and into the second transition area. 3 hours 33 on the bike - most of it pushing the bike!

The next bit was orienteering. I took too long pondering the map we got at the start of TA2 - in hindsight we should have just headed out, as the navigation was mostly by signs, we didn't really need the compass.

This is when I really started cramping up. The hills weren't too bad. We got to Check Point (CP) 5 before 4, but it didn't matter. In actual fact I think it was faster that way.

The finish was good. We caught up with quite a few teams, and had others in hot pursuit behind. It was quite an incentive to keep going as fast as possible. I had the cramping under control, so we jogged to the finish.

Overall 8 hours 43 minutes 30 seconds. The winning team was a veteran team, in 5 hours 59 minutes and 53 seconds. Nathan and his team sure know how to estimate the winning time! The final team in was 11 hours 52 minutes and 57 seconds.

We had a shower, grabbed some dinner, but headed back to Taupo before the prizegiving.

Had a few wines with the team, then crashed! Woke up feeling good. My muscles seem to have recovered well - perhaps if I didn't get cramped so badly, I could have gone harder?

I really want to do the Nelson Lakes race now!!!!