ECNZ 2010 – Day 13 – Geraldine to Waianakarua

ECNZ 2010 – Day 13 – Geraldine to Waianakarua

A couple of highlights today

1. The pool in Geraldine. A awesome 25m pool in a tiny town that none of us locals (Myself, Scott, Gordo etc) knew of.
2. The coastal ride from Oamaru to Waianakarua. The highlight of the camp for me so far. A brilliant stretch of coastal road, sun in the sky and wind at our backs.

Epic Camp has a number of traditions and one of them is the 400IM. Whilst we have a really strong group of athletes on the camp for most of them, swimming, is their weakness - that makes for an entertaining IM. Most of the big guns opened up in the first heat with Madman just edging out Molina in 5:55, not a special time but on day 13 of Epic that’s a good effort. Some entertaining fly was put in by Jo (who was a little water logged), David (who had already done the IM set) and Douglas.

I was in the last heat with just Pete. I did a few practice dives which went executed perfectly but when the gun went off I managed to semi dislodge my goggles, this got progressively worse so by the free leg they were completely full of water. My fly went well, back was very ordinary, breast – I went really strong and obviously brought it home with all I had left for the free. With the miniscule amount of swimming I have done pre camp (ballpark about 1-2km/week for the last 3-6mths) I was pleased with my 5:57, good enough for tied 2^nd with Scott. The Geraldine pool is the nicest 25m outdoor pool I’ve swum at in NZ.

As for the ride – I got on the front and led out group to the first aid station at 50km. A nice steady pace, very little wind and it felt like some gentle downhill. After the aid station Mark P got on the front and it was hammer time. Thank god after a quad crunching pull of about 20km Steven went to the front and the pace eased a little but it was still bloody hard in places. Some of the stretches of roads were also rough as guts and I guess that’s vaguely like what it feels like to ride Paris-Roubaix. Lunch was a welcome relief.

As I’ve mentioned the final 30km stretch of today’s ride from Oamaru to Waianakarua was outstanding. Our group eased right off the pace taking in the waves crashing over beaches and rocks with not a car in sight (no joke I think we had 2-3 cars pass us in 30km). A great way to finish the day and help us to forget about yesterdays miserable ride.

Summary

Swim 800m

Bike 150km