Day 3 and catching up on the blog

Ran 55 minutes to the pool, Swam 3 km, and then biked 180 km with 5300 feet elevation gain.

Since the pool was small in Hamner Springs they camp was broken up into two groups. The first group swam at 7:00 AM with the second group swimming at 8:05 AM. After swimming the first group returned for breakfast and depart on the bike course at 9:30 AM. The second group followed shortly afterward for breakfast and prepare to start the bike at 10:00 AM. I was part of the second group and probably the weakest member of the group. All the elite males and Brandon, Mike (the points leader), Mark and myself were the civilians in the group.

When first group headed the pool most of the second group ran to the pool. But we couldn't just run to the pool or find a nice easy route, Molina took us up to the top of Conical Hill. It was like a climb to the Sun! It was amazingly difficult climb. The trail switched back and forth... 20 times? It was way more than I was wanting! Then we ran right back down Conical Hill the way we went up and over to the pool. Across the street from the pools was a bakery/deli/coffee shop and Jonas bought Mike, Albert and me coffee and pastries. Fun thing was, I was wearing my Boise Aeros shirt and the lady behind the counter's son just married a girl from Boise Idaho. Can you believe it? Unfortunately she was so distracted she forgot to make my coffee and everyone proceed to the pool ahead of me.

It's amazing how every town in NZ seems to have really nice public pools. Some plan is to swim 3 km, but some of the guys were swimming 1000 meters with a band on there legs (no floaties, just a band). it looked really brutal. I was civil and just swam my 3000 meters and got out. I'm in survival mode, I'm about to fall into the points trap. I still have today and 9 more days ahead!

The bike started around 10:10 AM. It started out in a gentlemanly pace then we hit the undulating hills they were brutal. Not only did we have not stop mountains for the first 50 km we also had 20-30 mph head wind. Gordo road by during the accent of one of these climbs and said that the Kiwi's call these rollers, so it only understandable why there are so many NZ World Champions.

During on of the climbs one of the help stood along side the road passing out sodas. At this time the elite's of Molina, Steven, Claus, and one or two others attacked and got away from the rest of the group. Mitch and Gordo gave chase and punished each other in the process. I had barely bridged back up to Mitch and Gordo when a big van passed, and Mitch and Gordo jumped into the van's slip stream and off they went. I was dropped just like that. They very nearly bridge up the the lead group but couldn't. They slowed down and most of the group caught back up and we all worked together for a while, but as the king of the mountain points approached it became every man for himself. It was pretty interesting watching and feeling the effect of the possitioning and attacks off the front as the KOM points approached. Gordo (probably the only one who knew were the KOM was) broke away off the front to pick up the last elite KOM points. Depending on how things break down I might have picked up one of the four points available for the civilians. Then, we decended the back side of the mountain range. It was very cold and overcast during the decent. There was a water stop about 30-45 minutes after the KOM down in the valley. Again Gordo took off on his own and it took the Swedish Freight Train of Jonus pulling us 27 mph for 5 miles to catch Gordo. It was an amazing experience to hang on to that pull from Jonus!

Between the strong headwind, the nasty climbs and the wicked pace set by the group, taking pictures was a little tough. Here are a couple scenery shots I got.

We passed a couple of folks who dropped off the back of the first group, but we caught nearly all of them at the lunch stop.

After the lunch stop a group of 10-12 of us rode together the rest of the way into Murchison. It's overcast here and a little bit chilly. Sitting here in the hotel room I'm a little cold, not sure what the tempature is. I already miss Hamner Springs! :-)