Day 5

Swim 3km open water race
Run 2hrs (Heefy Track)
Bike 60km

Chris McDonald says I am trying to get back at all the race organisers who set short swim courses by always setting long one’s. Today I threw a couple of buoys out and eyeballed it as about 2.8km but in reality it was about 3.2km. Unsurprisingly “the fish” took it out pretty easily. In the bunch behind was myself, Scott sitting on the toes of Macca and Madman. After sucking feet all the way I didn’t have the heart to try and come around the guys (even if I could). Madman out sprinted Macca with myself next and Scott next. When we had finished we could see one lone swimmer way the hell off course several hundred meters off shore. That turned out to be Bevan who took last place.

After breakfast we took off for a long run on the Heefy track. It was 65mins generally uphill, turn and head for home making it around 2hrs. The Heefy is one of NZ’s great walks and I was determined to take it all in. We split up pretty quickly with most of us running solo. I was soaking it up, stopping several times to take in the views. What I liked the most was the complete silence other than the odd bird or cicadas. Great run.

Final nicknames
Ken “thorpedo” Wallace – in EC France Ken went around 27sec off a 50 free (at 2000m)
Mike ‘cheeky bastard’ Walker – several times I have been near to reprimanding him with points deduction for his wise cracks