Roped in and the creeper

My friend Jarred only just arrived back from working in Cairns about a week ago, it’s great to have him back as he’s great value, good to hang out with and thrash the trails with (we don’t actually damage the trails though but rather ourselves ;) ). We were out riding last week and he mentioned that he was going to do this half ironman as his friend Guy talked him into it. Jarred didn’t know when the race was going to be other then sometime in December. Turns out it was only half a week away and he hadn’t done any swimming for a while, and his knees don’t like the running much! Hm…. Rob therefore had the great idea to get the entry change from ‘solo’ to ‘team’ and rope me into doing the run for Jarred!! Guess it doesn’t hurt to step in for a friend in need ;)
So I ended up doing a half marathon on Saturday as part of the Rotorua Half Ironman. It turned out to be a great event with really good and very casual atmosphere and the course was just stunning as the swim was in Lake Tikitapu, also called Blue Lake, the ride went along State Highway 30 out to Lake Rotoiti, Lake Rotoehu and Lake Rotoma and the run was around Lake Tikitapu and down to Lake Tarawera lookout.
Below is what you see from the lookout (luckily there was no snow on Mt Tarawera though)
It was extremely windy in the morning when the race started, the lake was super choppy and a lot of swimmers seemed to struggle with the conditions, not so Jarred's friend Guy Crawford who was way ahead of any competition and got out of the water 4min ahead of the next athlete, he only took 26 min for the 2km swim! Jarred didn’t do badly at all other then for his swim-bike transition; I quote Rob: ”He took longer then your girlfriend takes to get ready to go out!” , it was rather painful for us to watch, but also a great laugh as we weren’t worried were we would get in the race (I am not saying we wouldn’t give it heaps ;)) .
Jarred was riding my Roadster (Santa Cruz road bike) as he needed a roady and Rob assured us triathlon bikes are meant to be small so it would be the prefect fit for Jarred who is about 6 ft 1 (1.86m) and I am 5 ft 4 (1.66m) (not sure about ft as I work in meters) but anyway, Jarred is quite a bit taller then me.
We followed Jarred along the first bit of the course, watched him hammering it up the hills and overtake everyone along the way, it was great to watch. He had a good ride despite loosing his computer and therefore having to do a u-turn to get it back (we blame Mike Metz for this one), his time was 2hr 45(-ish)min.
Guy was still in the lead when he came back from his ride but unfortunately kicked his shoe when he hoped of the bike and managed to break his little toe! He didn’t look that happy when he started the run, now I know why! Nevertheless he took off like a gun and was on target to do his run in 1hr 22min before he started getting rather bad cramps and had to stop ever 2km to stretch before being able to move again. Guy won the race by 15sec!! What an awesome effort! Jarred and I weren't quite up there but did quite well, as we had fun which was our main goal. I had a pretty good run 1hr 30min which was still 2 min slower then Guy’s!! and we ended up 3rd amongst the all male teams (no typo there ;) )

all winners got a big cuddly toy ;) and some booze


below blue lake nice and placid (unlike the day of the race)

Ps: our team was called ‘roped in & the creeper’

The Goat Run - final of the triple crown series

Wow I cannot believe my four weekends of racing have come and gone so quickly! It feels like I've only just been looking forward to it and now it's already been and gone. Crazy!
It has been a great challenge and not as hard as I had anticipated. The hardest part was Toi's (I think you can tell by the impression on my face in the pics) as I was still recovery from some big runs and rides. But they all races were a lot of fun and all were completely different which was just fantastic. I can recommend all of the four events and am looking forward to doing them again ;)

So now to the goat run, we were driving down to the national park, Fiona, Jason (thanks for driving!!) and I. We were not sure if the race was going to be postponed due to the week of rain leading up to it, we had heard the river levels would possibly be too high. It felt like a little adventure driving there and not knowing whether we would have to stay over night to race on Sunday or if it was on as planned or if we would be doing a different race course altogether.
But when we got to national park we went to the registration and everything was according to plan and we headed up to the start line to find some familiar faces like Budgy who was in charge of safety for the event (so we knew we were in good hands ;) )

having a chat to Sjors before the start:

Lining up on the startline:

The race starts off with a mad run down the tarseal road before it heads into a super technical walking trail with lots of river crossings, ups and downs, lots of sliding and clambering and falling over. I am well battered and bruised now but it was all worth is ;)
I wasn't doing that well at all (obviously if I admit to falling over a few times), I felt like a roady on a slippery and technical single trail, especially when one of the girls came flying past me, it looked rather amazing and I had no idea how she did it. I did luckily catch her up on mama's mile, like the year before with Oksana, but this time there were 2 girls already over the finish line well before I started that last climb. I got 3rd, and was 1st Triple Crown woman over the line. So I managed to win the series, very happy :)

as you can see the weather wasn't that flash at the end of our run.

Fiona did really well in her first goat run and crossed the line, very dirty and wet and with a SMILE on her face :) - you cannot quite tell in the pic