For the first time I decided to give the individual event a miss at this years Motu Challenge and instead put together a very handy team under the Subway banner. Daniel Jones lined up as our runner and Ryan Wills as our road biker. That left me with the MTB and the paddle, neither of which I have had a chance to do much of lately.
It may have been taking the philosophy of going into the race fresh rather a bit far but with the two recent races in China and a run each day I wasn’t actually feeling all that bad. Time would tell!
First we had to get there though and to avoid constant back rubs and sick bag sorties for Elina on the ferry I soloed it from Nelson to Rotorua in the car and collected the little princess at the airport that evening. She was after all tackling the full individual event once again so thought it was appropriate that I pick up the chauffeuring duties.
Race day dawned nothing like the forecast, overcast and cool it looked like the weather gods had vetoed the fine weather expected, at least the wind wasn’t gale force yet.
Setting out on the MTB the southerly blowing in our faces put paid to any fast times on the bike instantly, I was happy to try and stay out of trouble in the pack until we reached the first of the major climbs. The pace seemed really subdued compared to normal but pretty quickly the pack picked up and the gaps started opening up between riders.
I was feeling OK but very aware of not going into the red too early and ended up just off the back of the first bunch with individual Sam Clark. Sam had gone off the front solo last year and had obviously decided to try a different tack this year with a bit more energy conservation.
We had some company for the first two climbs with one cyclo-cross guy who was rocking it down the hills on the skinny tyres in the gravel too – great skills.
Aware that I didn’t have to do the run I thought it was only fair I tried to give it everything on the final climb and managed to break away from Sam who was still soft pedaling, the guys in front had obviously also started to suffer as they started coming into view and by the transition we were 4 minutes behind the leading team but only a minute down on the other two teams.
Handing over to Daniel he left transition looking like it was heading out for a 1km rep not a 17km one. My secondary duties started straight away preparing for Elina’s arrival on the MTB, luckily she hadn’t beaten me into transition as she would have had to go searching for the car to find her runners! Thanks to all the experienced support crews for their tips in setting up and pointing me in the right directions – I swear it looks totally different when you’re not racing.
With Dan not expected back for an hour Ryan was already warming up on the wind-trainer at a pace that would surely have sapped enough energy from most mortal competitors to leave them unable to complete the cycle stage ahead.
Elina came in off the MTB with a healthy lead and headed off onto the run without any drama………that I was aware of anyway. We roped in Daniel’s Mum Jo to show here where her bike was for the road stage and to grab her shoes as we would be shortly chasing Ryan down the road, trying to get to the kayak transition in time for me to get geared up and ready for the paddle.
Daniel whipped round the 17km run section only a few seconds shy of the race record in an hour and a some seconds, still looking ready for a second lap, he had turned a 4 minute deficit into about a 10 minute lead.
We didn’t catch up to Ryan until almost halfway through the ride as he set about building us a huge buffer for the river section and also went within a few seconds of the race record. Given I would have Olympic kayaker Ben Fouhy chasing me I felt that no lead was really too big.
The river was pretty low and very slow, with the kayaks picking up plenty of scratches. I certainly have no complaints about paddling a decent boat though after all the China racing where the boats are super wide and slow.
I’ll admit to a few sneaky looks over the shoulder to see if Ben was closing in behind but there was no sign of him at the finish as I did the little run up to hand off to Ryan for the final ride.
Just as I was leaving I mentioned to Daniel if his Mum had Elina’s TT bike, yep she should have he replied, sweet, time to relax until my transition skills were once again required.
A few seconds later Daniel appeared again thinking he may have forgotten to mention picking up Elina’s bike at the kayak transition – not so sweet!
It was a pretty quick trip 25km back up to the bike kayak transition in the trusty Amarok and as soon as I arrived the transition staff new what I was missing and we chucked (carefully laid) her TT bike in the back and I was on my way back to the end of the kayak within a minute.
After all that drama I was just relieved to see she hadn’t been through, I set up her transition and got back to some quality waiting time.
When she did come in she was looking strong and relaxed and bounded up towards the bike and off down to the final transition.
Elina finished in just under 8 hour and 25 minutes for her 7th win in the event. Our team Subway took out the win with an almost 20 min margin which had very little to do with me and everything to do with my very quick team mates – Thanks Guys.
Overall it was another really fun event up in Opotiki, highly recommended as an early season hit out for Coasters too.
Next up we’ll be at the Red Bull Defiance race in Wanaka, which is a new race in the same format as the races in China, less the gastro and translation difficulties hopefully! – 2 person teams over a marked course – should be fun and the Wanaka area is a spectacular place to race.
