Moerangi Trail x 2 - what a day!

Yesterday Fiona, Jason, Mike, Rob and I went to tackle the double crossing of the stunning Moerangi trail in Whirinaki. It's a pretty honest ride in itself but there is nothing like a little bit of a challenge to keep us entertained on a sunny Sunday :)

We decided to head out early, giving the Sunday sleep-in a miss, to ensure we had enough daylight up our sleeves for our mission ride. The drive towards Whirinaki forest was stunning, there was some thick fog hanging about that made it look like a place in a fairy tail . Scott from Jail house farm stay in Murupara was already waiting for us welcoming us with his big smile. Hearing of our plan he thought we were a little crazy, most of us quietly agreed... ;)

Mike and I had decided to warm up on the road by riding the extra 12 km to the end of Minginui Road which is where the Moerangi trail ends (or for us started), rather then taking the ride in Scott's van. It took a little longer to warm up as the air had a good nip to it and with the moisture in the air felt rather chilly, it might have made us pedal a little harder though, so that was handy ;) we soon warmed up and we had to start peeling our layers off. It was great riding the trail backwards, it's like riding a new but at the same time familiar track.  and knowing that we would come back the same way gave the climbs a different attraction as we knew that all the uphills would soon (in a few hours) turn into descent, so we got to check out downhill lines while grovelling up the climbs, a nice way of keeping you entertained and enjoy (at least in the first part of the ride) the uphills.

There were hardly any people out there in the forest, we saw four walkers at one of the huts who had stayed overnight and looked like they were not planing on moving on for a while, I don't blame them as the spot close to a pristine river amongst the ancient forest is magic. And we saw a group of riders when we got to the other end of the trail, the actual start of the Moerangi trail, were we enjoyed a little picnic break in the sun to refuel our engines before we tackled the second part of our ride. It was stunning weather, not too hot and not too chilly either, just right and blue sky as far as you could see! :)

Going into the second leg was fine, it's undulating and flat so we felt pretty good and our little stop probably helped too. We all started feeling it by the time we began the second to last big climb (i reckon it's the hardest of the climbs), but we kept plodding along focusing on the flowy 9 km descent (with a couple of short sharp uphill pinches - it's best not to think about those)  that was waiting for us as our treat after the last climb. We soon made it to the top of that last hill and enjoyed the anticipation of that downhill to come :) what an unbelievable feeling ;)

The descent did feel like a well earned treat and made it even better due to the hard ride up to it. It goes on for ages and you don't want it to end :)

The hardest bit was probably the slog back to the Jail house farm stay as it's on the gravel and sealed road without the attraction of the stunning forest or single trail and our legs had no juice left by then. Mike pulled Rob and me back for most of the way, I tried to do my bit of work but the legs gave up as soon as there was a slight uphill.

What a day! We will be back for more....

Ohope Half Marathon

Budge at the start of the race

a brand new event, the Ohope Half Marathon, was held in Ohope last Sunday . the course was flat and on the road so the perfect training for Rotorua Marathon as it is an easy way to do a longer time trail session. so i decided to tag along with Jo, Jen and Budge who had planned to do the race for quite some time.

there were a few fast runners there. i didn't know how i was going to go an how the body would feel as i hadn't done a running race for quite some time and it was only my second road running race. i do prefer running offroad, having to navigate over uneven ground and being surrounded by lush vegetation, but it's good to do something different for a change.

Karen Hanlen was at the start too, we had a chat about mountain biking. Karen is a local runner who i had a good battle with at Toi's challenge last year, it's great to see some familiar faces at events, it makes racing much more fun.

the pace was up right from the start and the field spread out right away. we were 6 girls in our little groups but we didn't stay together for very long, Helen Rountree from Hamilton took off early on and extended her lead throughout the race to finish in 1hr 20min 22sec, 3min in front of Hannah Barker and 5min ahead of me. i could see Helen for quite some time, ahead of me in the distance becoming this little dot, she certainly didn't only looked like a runner but also performed like one. Karen and i had a bit of a battle for a while and i kept on thinking that she might catch me back up, she didn't, but it was a good excuse for me not to slow down too much. Tracy Clissold finished only 6 sec after me, i had no idea she had snuk-up on me, lucky the finish line wasn't 100m further along or we would have had a sprint finish.

Jo finished in a fantastic 1hr 45min, 5min ahead of Budge (great job for having done bugger all running) and Jen also did really well in 2hr 15min cool!

the event was really well organised and it's always fun to do a race in Whakatane or Ohope as there are plenty of friendly people along the course cheering everyone on and having a good time. it makes racing much more fun.

we had a great trip away and a good time.