It's all about the bike, or so they say

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After feeding the body and having a wash we went to see the start area of the race at Kumara Beach. Another one horse town literally as it has a racecourse, a shop, a town hall and that’s it. So 800 teams and their support crews (thanks again Niamh) all popping in for a cup of tea and to register for the race tomorrow should be fun, probably the biggest thing to happen out this way since well last year’s race.



Today was bike day so we drove from the beach start up the gravel track and onto what the kiwis call a slight incline on paved road; slight incline means mt Everest steep. We stopped off at the run to bike transition and I jumped onto the bike. 55kms of rolling hills with a 7 km descent thrown in for good measure, again they must be working off a different dictionary to us on the northern hemisphere. Starts out with 10kms of great tarred road uphill of course slightly I would agree, then the 7kms of downhill. For every 300mtrs you go down you have to suffer with a stiff (hill of howth type stiff) 150mtr climb. Good thing it was practiced in spin class unfortunately it’s for 14minutes of sprinting and climbing instead of the 3 or 4 minutes practiced. Then it gets interesting, climbing, climbing, and climbing with the odd short flat section on which we can rest. But hey it’s the Coast to Coast so they have to live up to their name as the toughest one day multisport event in the world.



So up until now I’ve done a bit of river running and cycling tomorrow I tackle the kayaking. Not long to go now.

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