Speight's Coast to Coast race report: Part 2 - Day 1

The day started with a 4.45am alarm call.

I got myself sorted, though there wasn't much to do.  I decided the previous evening to stay up later that I would like to check all my kit, food and liquid so that I could have a relaxed morning.  Meanwhile, Matt made my breakfast and Helen started to breakdown our camp.

Whilst I didn't sleep well, the morning went very smoothly.  Simon and I cycled to the the bike transition 4.6k away and my support crew headed to the run transition 50k away to wait for me.  From the bike transition, Simon and I walked the final 3k to the beach (stopping several times in the many portaloos for nerves breaks!)

I washed my hands in the sea, making sure I had a true coast to coast experience, and joined the many participants stretching, warming up and watering the flora.

The race started with a 3k sprint to our bikes.  I'm really bad at sprint starts, especially first thing in the morning, so I decided to play it safe.  This meant that I didn't make the 200 strong pack of cyclists but it did mean that my legs weren't goosed in the first 5 min!

I reached my bike, stripped off my leg warmers, changed my shoes and was off.  What a blast!  The course undulates steadily upwards for 55k and passes through lush forest, wide river plains and heads towards the mountains.  The temperature was perfect, warm with a cool breeze.  I polished off a 750ml bottle of electrolyte, a 750ml bottle of water and ate something every 30min.

I came into bike transition feeling good.  I quickly changed my top and shoes, had some food then grabbed my rucksac and was off.

After 3k of track we came to the first of many river crossings.  It is pretty standard to assist your fellow competitors at crossings and I held the hand of a girl called Marie.  I think she helped me more than I helped her!  In the end, Marie and I stayed together for the rest of the 'run'.  I say run in the loosest sence of the word, more like a walk!  I hadn't had much practice running over river beds.  I'm usually good at going over on my ankle in terrain like that, so decided to walk as quickly as I could for most of it and running when it was safe.  I hadn't had a chance to go over the running route before the race.  I'm glad I didn't try, it would have scared me.  Walking with Marie was a good partnership, she knew the route and I had the food timing nailed.  Every 30 min we ate something, every river crossing we drank something.  I also carried 2ltrs of electrolyte for the first and last 5k where you can't drink from the rivers.  Generally I was happy my nutrition stratagy re the Cliff Bars but the Cliff Shot blocs were not a good idea, they didn't have enough calaries.  After 3 hours I ditched them for my back up food.

The run was tough.  It is stoney, rocky and rooty on the way up and muddy and rooty with steep drops on the way down.  I was glad to cross the finish line.

I met with Helen and Matt (and the new kayak) and headed for our camp.  I was in the process of eating my dinner, having downed my Banana Rego, when officials started giving anouncements of an emergency race briefing that all had to attend at 7pm.

Challenge 4: What happens when the weather turns against you...
The emergency race briefing was to inform us about the sever weather warning that had been issued to our area.  We were told that we make sure our tents were well and truely secured because the weather was really going to hit us.  But that wasn't the bad news...  The bad news was that the Waimak, the river we were due to paddle, was due to quadruple in size over night!  The kayak leg as we knew it was cancelled!  Instead we were to cycle the 135k (or 145k depending on who you listed too!) back to Christchurch, over the Southern Alps, then a 20k paddle down the Avon.  In the pouring rain and galeforce winds!

Day 2 was going to be interesting!