Day 8

Swim events (400IM, 200 kick, 50 free)
Triathlon (Swim 1.5km / Bike 40km / Run 10km)

The swim events are always fun to watch. Mike Walker takes the prime for entertainer of the day with his 10min for 200m kick. He was in the first heat and the 2nd heat finished before he was done. Some mid event coaching from Heath helped him along. Mike was first to say he was off for some swim coaching when he gets home.
Bevan took great pride in beating my time in the 200m kick, enough said.
The 50m free should be disregarded through some non FINA certified timing but Ken did defend his title from France back in 2006 irrespective of timing.
Heath easily took the 400IM

I had to nip out to the triathlon venue at Rabbit Island to set up the swim with my makeshift buoys. It was pretty simple. I dropped one about chin height depth, got in the van and drove about 300m along, got out and walked down the beach about 50m and dropped in the other. We were doing 3 laps of that – it was choppy which slowed us down heaps but I think it would not have been more than 1600m so disregard what you read on other blogs J.
Heath took the swim out with Daniel MacDonald (support crew) trying to hang on. When Daniel blew Madman and I went through and unbeknown to me dropped everyone else. As we were on the final stretch I felt I had been going for some time without seeing a buoy (I was sitting on Stevens toes). When I took a look to shore I saw the buoy about 40m to the right, when I did this Steven pulled away and I wasn’t going to chase him to tell him to make the turn so he did a good tack on (as he has been doing all camp). With Heath’s tyre blow out it meant I had a healthy lead but I was not very confident I would be able to bike far after yesterdays performance. I just settled into a moderate pace and waited for the Macca express to come charging by. I’d set a great, fair bike course with a mix or rollers, hills and flat. Combined with the bloody hot day it was a suitable finish to the camp. Surprisingly Macca didn’t catch me until about the 25km mark, I wasn’t pushing it and he can’t have been either. Off the bike and I just ran steady to moderate as Macca was not completing the run course and Steven was probably about 7mins behind. It was a bit of a hoax victory really as I didn’t do the bike the day before but I was really pleased my knee held up.
There was a great battle for 3rd between Piet, Lou and Scott but you know nine times out of ten Molina will come out on top in a situation like that no matter what it takes.

So that’s it for another camp. Next year I will have to put in significantly more preparation. I can blag my way through an 8 day camp but the plan is to go length of NZ next time around. This will be about 2000km in 14 days along with the other usual challenges. Next camp is in June in France and looks to be a cracker. If you are interested get in touch with us

We had a great bunch of guys and girls on this camp. The camaraderie was great (often unspoken in the tough times) and I look forward to seeing the campers again some time soon.

Special thanks to our support crew. That is one thing that separates our camps from the others.
- Super Dave Dwan stepped up to lead support man this year and did a great job
- John Ellis our masseuse was back looking after our bodies www.musclesinc.co.nz
- Daniel MacDonald (Chris’s brother) was a first timer and his cooking was fantastic. For Kiwi’s and Aussies check out his site for various tri gear www.dcmsport.com
- Steve Motley – another first time supporter who gave us some colourful humour
- Sarah Helmore – took us up to 4 females on the camp and worked like a trooper

And also our sponsors for this camp
- High Five nutrition (kiwi site www.fifthelement.co.nz everywhere else check www.highfive.co.uk/
- Oomph Sports for excellent fitting tri gear www.oomphsports.com
- Blue Seventy www.blueseventy.com/
- Fuel Belt – your long run companion www.fuelbelt.com/ Coffee’s of Hawaii – simply a great supporter of triathlon and a great product www.coffeesofhawaii.com/

Day 7 – broken man

Bike – 16km
Swim – 30min lake swim
Run – 50mins

We don’t get a whole bunch of injuries on epic camp which is strange given the nature of what we do. Yesterday after doing some big pulls on the front I felt me knee going on me as we approached the winery. I absolutely grovelled home on one leg and hoped a nights sleep might do the trick. It didn’t. After about 1min of riding this morning the pain came back and after 5mins it was pretty debilitating. I carried on for about 30mins hoping it would warm up. With my calf cramping (to accommodate for the knee) and riding single leg it was just not going to happen for me today. I made the tough call to get in the van. On reflection I made the only decision I could make so whilst I am very very annoyed at not being able to complete the camp I don’t feel like I whimped out .
Strangely enough I could still run so when we arrived at Lake Rotoitit we had a beautiful swim and trail run. One of the great things about this camp is we explore parts of our backyard we have never been to. Lake Rotoiti was spectacular and the only reason I can think that it isn’t a throng of people is the sandflies, but even they weren’t too bad today.
When I stood up after lunch I knew my knee was not going to work this afternoon so I missed the tailwind sprint (85km) back to Nelson. It sounded like a blast with Peit saying he his 86km/hr on his aero bars. The group got home about 1hr quicker than they went out.
So all in all not a good day but John E has given the leg a loosen and maybe I can get going again tomorrow

Day 6 - Takaka take 2

Swim 50mins
Bike 140km (broken)
Aquathon swim 1.5km / run 8km

We opened up with a catch up 50min open water swim at 6:30am – this was to catch up the swim we missed on the big bike day. I spotted a buoy several hundred meters off short and was going to do a couple of loops of it. The water at Collingwood is very tidal and shallow. As we swam out it just didn’t get any deeper (.5-2m) and we could see everything on the bottom, for some reason I thought I was going to see a dead body staring up at me. Further on I was starting at what I thought was a strange looking rock then with a puff of sand the supposed rock (which was actually a sting ray) shot off. That scared the crap out of me but there was nobody around with their head up to tell so I pushed on thinking it might be a one off. I then saw another ray and then another and that was enough for me. As I turned around Madman and The limpet were close by and also freaking out a little. As Madman and I put our heads back under there was another one under us - not fun. We finished off the rest of the swim close to shore.

Today’s bike was about 50km with a little rolling then back over the Takaka hill. After an easy warm up I could see this turning into an easy ride, when that has happened in the past Gordo has been here to take up the slack. He’s not here so I felt it my duty to get on the front and keep a steady tempo (which I did all the way to the bottom of the climb).
Over the hill to Kaiteri and we had an Aquathon. I needed to defend my title here and did so in tricky conditions. It was backing hot and I had set a tough run with several climbs. Fat Albert did a great run to take the terminator on the line after he has been rolled over in the KOM. Likewise Mullie made it an IMTalk 1-2 finish with a great run.
An addition to this years epic was a winery trip on the way to Nelson. We popped into Neurdorf winery which was spectacular. They allowed us to take in some lovely cheese, grapes, salami and dips. This was a great way to almost end the day and hopefully a permanent addition to the camps.
On the final spin home (35km) my left knee really gave out and I had to more or less grovel home one legged. Hopefully that clears up overnight, most likely it was a result of pushing it on the run today.
Tomorrow is another tough day with 180km of riding.

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

Day 4 – it’s supposed to be summer.

Run 50mins
Swim 3km
Bike 130km incl 16km race/KOM over Takaka hill

Before I start you can catch the McDonalds blogs on www.trimacca.com

It was always going to happen. Last night I was beaming after seeing the forecast for the next few days – clear, cloudless, warm days. What happened today - gentle rain pretty much all day, nice work met service!

When Mullie and I were doing the podcast earlier this evening I made the comment that there seems to be more easier riding on this camp but more hard stuff as well (ie less steady). Today was a good example of this. We biked to the base of the Takaka hill as a group (60km) then it was game on. The terminator did a sneaky attack away from the aid station while the rest of us were still waiting on the side of the road. I had no worries sitting on Chris’s wheel to pull us up to him before the start of the climb. The Takaka climb starts with a solid section of 9% then settles to about 7%, kicks again towards the top of the first section, a little plateaux then another 3km to the top. My plan was just to see how it felt and take it from as it came to me. I knew there were plenty of flatter sections where guys would try to recover, this is the time to close the gaps. There were a few attacks early on to settle the groups out with Mullie and Macca predictably heading off into the distance. Surprise, surprise Scott was glued to my wheel for pretty much the whole way up the climb and he sprinted past with about 200m to go, I think he gets plenty of satisfaction of outkicking me. Only one point separates us in the KOM and it’s about the same in GC but I have a few tricks up my sleeve yet. I was happy with 6th in the KOM feeling as good as could have been expected. Lou the fly has the performance of the day going over in 4th after spending almost the entire camp yo-yoing on and off the back of the bunch.

We’ve now arrived in Collinwood and have doubled the population of this tiny little village. This really is a great, remote part of New Zealand. Tomorrow we head for a run in the Heefy track and a nice open water swim.

It was great to see some of our walking wounded back on track today with Madwomen, the fish and Ian “ghost” Hersey all back on the bike.

There has been some talk about my posts potentially getting a little cryptic with all the nicknames so here’s what we have thus far
Scott Molina – the terminator
Bevan “Mullie” Eyles – he may have lost the mullet but the name sticks
Steven “madman” Lord - crazy volume
Jo “madwomen” Carrit – partner of Steven and equally mad
Del “the infringer” Pitcher – cop who got a speeding ticket from his kiwi counterparts
Ian “ghost” Hersey – this guy is seriously white and has to be super careful in our kiwi sun
Russell “cardboard” Cox – because he rides and runs with a very stiff body
Piet Hein “Mr Persistent” – on the first few days Piet sat persistently on the front at an uncomfortable speed for all of us except Chris
Marilyn McDonald “bike chic” – she’s no longer a triathlete, now trying her hand at bike racing
Dave “charlsey” Langley – good mates with Epic regular Andrew Charles and coming from Brisbane has borrowed most of his winter epic gear. Charlsey has also constantly been in his ear scaring him about the camp
Lou Di Guiseppe “Lou the fly” – has big tired eyes
Tara “the limpet” Norton – she just hangs in there all the time no matter what
Heath “the fish” Thurston – showing us all how to swim
Chris McDonald – who will now be referred at “the wind block” or Macca
Douglas “fat Albert” Scott – for a skinny kiwi he can generate some serious speed on the bike

I’ve got just a couple of go now

Day 3 – The big ride

Bike 255km Kaikoura to Nelson
Run 50mins

Sometimes we have to bend the rules on epic camp and today was one of those days. Normally we have to swim, bike and run each day but today we ran out of time to swim given the brutal bike – don’t worry though, campers still have to do the swim by catching it up later in the camp in order to achieve “camp completion”.

255km is a long way, throw in a ton of headwind and a lot of serious climbing and you are in for a long day. Last year I rode solo for 300km but had very short stops, today was a hell of a lot tougher than that. Sanity prevailed and we rode nice and easy for the first few hours. Soon after some tempo riding on the climbs split the bunch in two before our 2nd aid station. We then regrouped in Blenheim (129km) and rode a fantastic chain gain effort to lunch in Havelock (175km). I think we all got a good buzz out of this. We were battling into a head wind at times but the group was rolling through perfectly with each person spending just a few seconds on the front. This required full on concentration by everyone and meant you didn’t get a chance to think about the pain of fatigue – we were at lunch in no time.

Post lunch we had around 30km to the top of the KOM at the Rye saddle - the fun and games started at about 20km with some tempo riding. Bevan (Mullie) who arrived half way through the ride tried to give Chris a big push for the KOM but couldn’t shake him. Solid effort by Madman for 3rd. I came over about 6th which was OK – from here on in I was in cruise mode but the thermometer was going sky high. We had one last climb of the Whangamoas (spelling??) – this climb was ruthless and very very hot. Sometimes on this camp you really do ask yourself questions (came I make it?, what are you doing??....), breaking through these times and coming back the next day is what Epic is all about. We finally made the summit and had a wonderfully long descent down the other side. With no aid station in sight we guzzled down some water at a store and had a lovely tail breeze home for the rest of the ride. That has been rarity on this camp.

One of my renowned sayings on epic camps is “kiwi rollers” to describe relentless, tough rolling hills. Today’s new saying is “sea breezes” – if we had sea breezes which was the forecast today I’d hate to see mild to heavy winds, it was very tough at times.

Another 50min zonbieathlon finished me off. BUT I finished the day feeling a hell of a lot better than I started so things are picking up.

A funny incident today. When speaking to a member of the public they thought we were a bit crazy when we said we were riding to Nelson but then followed up with “at least you are not going over the Takaka hill”, my response “don’t worry we do go over there the next day”. Molina will be bringing his A game tomorrow so it will be interesting to see who can match him on the 16km climb (he beat all the pro’s up there last time).

Day 2 – oh baby that hurt

Swim – 3km
Bike – 190km
Run – 10km

Everybody seems to think I’m sand bagging when I say I’m in miserable bike shape (and have been for some time) but today was just a horrendous display.
The swim was pretty straight forward swimming with Roly’s swim squad at QEII. Today’s bike was a toughie from Christchurch to Kaikoura (190km) with no shortage of climbing. The KOM at 85km was interesting. Macca was off the front with Mr Persistent in sight. A small group behind was taking turns to try and bridge the gap. Fat Albert did a great pull and with the KOM in sight I went to the front to close the final gap. It was all in vein, if we’d had another 50m we would have had My Persistent – I thought the climb was a little longer. As usual, Molina came around me with 20m to go to take 3rd by half a wheel, one day I will have to learn to sprint.

Post lunch we had a 67km TT – I just don’t want to talk about that. It became a steady ride for me after about 45mins. Nothing in the tank or legs today. Solid effort from Russel ‘cardboard’ Cox (his body is like a rock solid piece of cardboard when he rides) in the TT today, he came blitzing past me. Del “the infringer” Pitcher (Del is a cop from the UK who got a speeding ticker over here in NZ when on a tiki tour

After the ride I had my first zombieathon run of the camp shuffling though the streets of Kaikoura. Feeling a little sorry for myself tonight but looking forward to a big day at the office tomorrow.

Day 1 – The Old West Coast Road has the last laugh.

Day 1 – The Old West Coast Road has the last laugh.

Run 10km
Swim 3.2km incl 2km TT
Bike 150km

Ahh the tactics of epic camp are entertaining. Everyone says “I don’t care about the points”, that lasts about 5 seconds once we get going.
We opened up with the traditional 2km TT in the pool. Before we even dived in it was apparent Heath “the fish” Thurston (I’m giving everyone nicknames on this camp) was going to kill us all. The battle for 2nd – 5th could be entertaining. There was two lanes of quicker swimmers. Lane 3 saw Heath leading off, Molina 2nd, me 3rd and Tara 4th. In the lane next door “Madmad” was leading out Macca. After Heath opened with a 1:10 first 100m (long course) we were in his dust, I closed in on Molina and passed him pretty quick but the problem was Tara was closing in on me. This is where the tactical battle began. Looking under the lane rope I could see Madman edging away which was a concern. I conceded the Tara “the limpet” was not going to drop so I let her come around me and sat about 2-3m back. Madmad continued to pull away but “the fish” was closing in on us fast and lapped us around the 1km mark - this is where my plan unravelled. Straight on his feet I went, around Tara and we were nicely pulled up to a frustrated madman (poor lane selection by him J ). So it ended up:
1 – The Fist 2- The limpet 3 – me 4 – Madman 5 – Terminator.

Today’s ride was round the Gorges. The forecast was for warm weather with a cold southerly change around lunchtime. We leisurely rolled through town which was nice despite the Saturday night glass on the road. As we left town there was an area with a few turns so I pushed up to the front and Douglas (fat albert) joined me and proceeded to drop the hammer, a little too much Coffee’s of Hawaii coffee for his breakfast I think. I was glad I didn’t have a HRM on today as the numbers would have been a little disturbing. Through to our first aid station and it was fairly controlled. It was then game on with Macca & Piet (mr persistent) taking it to the front and splintering the group.
There was a little confusion about the exactly location of the KOM and once Macca was off the front it was warfare between The Limpet, Marylyn (bike chic), Madman and myself. We crested the first of a two step climb (which we though was the KOM), madman looked to be in trouble so I tried to increase the effort a little but I was gone. We came over the top, realising our effort was in vein and the KOM was somewhere else. This was not good as we had another 10-15km of rollers. As it turned out when we did roll over the KOM it was all a bit tame with Macca off the front, the limpet rolling over 2nd with me on her wheel.

For the first 80km of the ride we had been pelted with strong head/side winds. What this meant was to mean was we should have some serious tail wind home. With a gentle downhill I was thinking we could average 45km/hr easy. As we made the turn on old west coast road where the tail wind kicks in we flew for about 2km. We then saw a wall of cloud coming straight at us and within seconds we had a brutal headwind and the temperature dropped from around 25c to about 13c. I hate it when the weather forecast is right. That was one tough ride home, no tact on for me.
There are still some crazies still out there training. We started at 6am this morning and there is a 12hr window which finishes in 20mins.

The points are in.
It’s a tie at the top of the table with Madmad and The Limpet. The limpet takes the jersey for being in front in both the 2km and KOM.
Looking forward to tomorrow.