I arrived back in NZ at the end of October after racing at the AR World champs in Spain, I had to throw myself in deep end and started training on the 1st of November as I got roped into doing “The Big Day at The Office” race as Brad from the Halswell Butchery wanted to the race and wanted me to do it as well. I must say the first week of training was incredibly hard and after three weeks of some good training together we were at the start line of the Teva Big Day at the Office race. Some of Canterbury’s best Multisporters along with Dougal Alan, Gavin Mason, Glen Currie and Carl Bevins that has recently moved to Christchurch were also there so it was going to be a tough day at the office. The first 40km bike ride was going to be interesting as there were team riders and also the duathlon competitors. Before we really knew we had start and it was all go at the front with Gavin Mason leading the way and want the pace car to go faster. Not much happened in this ride really but there were a few attempted break-aways but to no avail, except for Nathan Smith and one other got a small gap but by the end of the ride they only had 10 seconds or so. It was only 9.10am and it was already very warm and was going to be hot over Mt Somers, there was quite a group that all started off on the run together and they all had faster transitions than me so I spent the 3km on the shingle road to the track trying to catch them up. After reaching the Mt Somers walk way I worked my way through the field until there was only Dougal Alan and Jeremy Mckenzie ahead of me, I tried my best to keep them in sight but was having trouble keeping up the intensity and once we had got into the tighter parts of the track I lost sight of them. I was finding the run harder than I would have expected but kept trying as hard as I could, once out to Sharplen Falls I felt quite good running on the road to Stavely and passed a “catch me if you can” runner and apparently I passed Jeremy Mckenzie in the transition onto the bike. Once on the bike I was suffering and my legs just want to cramp all over so it was a rather hard ride for me and I’m sure quite a few others, eventually the legs came back to me a bit but then the ride was over and it was down to the Rakaia River for a 17km paddle. I was looking forward to getting into the kayak and resting the legs a bit but I was also a bit unsure how it would unfold as I had never been on this river before and in a new boat and also a new paddle. And to top it off my legs were cramping again and my arms didn’t seem to have much strength either. It was very nice to be on a different stretch of water and it made it mentally all go a bit faster even with a head wind. The organisers had basically marked the channels to take, which I thought was a great idea as this would mean that there was no disadvantage to people that had never been down the river before. Once at the transition my support crew told me that they had left the safety flag on the rudder of my kayak, maybe this is my it felt so slow, not really I was just exhausted I think from the heat and intensity of the race. It was really in the heat of the day now and we had to run uphill for 2.2kms to the last bike of 10km to Methven. I actually felt a bit better now and the run up the hill felt pretty good but once onto the bike I started counting the kilometres and this was a bad move as it all seemed to take quite a while to get to the 3km mark. I had to tell myself to push harder as the finish is just around the corner (well not really it was pretty much a straight 10km road to the finish) I was very glad to cross the finish line in 2nd place even though it was about 14 minutes behind Dougal. It gave me a good gauge of where I am with my fitness and skills at the moment and what to work on for the next race. The Teva Big day at the office was held in Conjunction with the duathlon which was pretty much on the same course as the multisport race and also “The catch me if you can” running race over the Mt Somers walk way. Thanks to Multisport events for a great race in a wonderful place and stunning weather, what else could you ask for.Full results can be found at http://www.multisportevents.co.nz/
Thanks to my sponsors
Halswell Butchery, Macpac, Merida Bikes, Inov-8 shoes, Ems Power cookies
