ECNZ 2010 – Day 5 – Matamata to Turangi

ECNZ 2010 – Day 5 – Matamata to Turangi

On most Epic Camps cracks start to appear on day 5 and this camp is no different. After a fairly torrid opening few days everyone is getting tired and some, myself included, a little cranky at times. I got some negative thoughts as we were hammering along well above the pace I wanted to go but being in the KOM jersey I decided to hang in there. I got over it pretty quickly at lunch and just moved on. It’s funny that at the start of today which was a tough 180km ride I didn’t even think about the distance being long, I just got in with it. That’s one of the most important lessons epic dishes out, Ironman just doesn’t seem as hard when you do 15 days of solid training back to back.

We set off on good time and rode friendly to our first aid station at 60km. It was nice riding two abreast and having a bit of a chin wag. The bunch was then splintered and the hammering commenced and didn’t stop until lunch. God knows what speed we were going, it was uphill but with a slight tailwind. In normalised conditions I’d say we would have been sitting above 40km for close on 2hrs (others can verify this). We started with 13 in the ground and were down to 5 by lunch, then it was time for me to put up the common sense white flag and I rolled in solo for the final 60km.

I am somewhat surprised that I’m still feeling pretty good. There’s not too much muscular damage going on with my legs that I can feel and energy levels seem OK.

This evening had a nice swim in a choppy Lake Taupo which I’m sure helped recovery. I had to brush off my run to put out a few fires and do some organisational work. All I’m looking for in my totals is to swim the 26km through the camp and run 100km along with all the biking. Sure I’ll have some fun with some of the points racing but that’s secondary.

Everyone’s bikes are back in working order for tomorrow which Rip and Mark P are relieved about.