Tuesday 26 August 2014

COROMANDEL CLASSIC

2014 marked the 15th year of the Coromandel Classic Multisport race; an event based on the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula that consistently attracts many great multisport and adventure athletes from around NZ. This year saw the addition of a duathlon event, which gave non-paddling athletes a chance to get involved, perfect for triathletes who enjoy a bit of the off-road racing!

My coach, Brendan, and I both entered the duathlon as individuals; an event which would see us cover 20km of mountain biking, 45km of trail running and 120km of road cycling, across two days.

The weekend began with race briefing and gear check on Friday night. From the get-go I could tell it was going to be one adventurous weekend! Race briefing involved endless instructions of where not-to-go to avoid getting lost for hours in the rugged Coromandel Ranges. It finished with a warning from the race co-ordinator to be careful on the run course, as he had previously broken his arm while running through and marking the track! He also threw in mention of the fact that they had designed the duathlon event to suit the distances of Ironman athletes, by adding in an extra out-and-back to Cooks Beach on day one. 
As someone who is yet to do their first half Ironman, this was a tad daunting!

Day One

Day One dawned as a beautiful (but crisp!) Coromandel morning. Race start was 7am, beginning with the 20km mountain bike leg up the Kauaeranga Valley. When the race began, both Brendan and I were towards the back of the field, which meant there was a bit of work to do, to find our way up to those of a similar pace! Brendan managed to somehow catch the front bunch, and I made my way up to the second bunch where I settled in for a steady ride up to the road end. Arriving at road end, my trusty support crew (Mum and Dad) helped me through transition and off I went on the 27km run up the rugged, yet stunning Pinnacles Track. If you are ever in the Coromandel Region with a few hours to spare, this is definitely worth a look!
 
 
The track is known to be very technical and steep, with over an hour of climbing to begin with. To prepare for this tough run, I had travelled down a few prior to the race to practise and become familiar with the course. However, I soon realised that the track I was running was certainly not the one I had practised on, woops! Not sure what track I ran Brendan, but it sure wasn’t that one!

After crawling, falling, climbing and cursing my way up to the summit, we started heading downhill – however this soon proved to be tougher than going up!
The slippery rocks and clay banks meant that falling over a number of times was inevitable, and I found myself sliding down some parts of the track on my bum. Unfortunately I found myself being overtaken by quite a few people on the downhill sections, and lost around 10-15 places overall. 
When I finally came to the final 9km of the run along gravel road I knew I had some making up to do, and took off furiously down the road. Thankfully, I was feeling pretty good at this stage of the run, and managed to overtake over 20 people to make up for my slow decent!
Reaching the end of the run was a relief, knowing that there was only one stage on Day One left to go – a 50km cycle. I was feeling OK heading out to Cooks beach, until I reached the turnaround point and realised that I had been riding with a slight tail wind, which was now going to be a head wind!
I slogged my way out of Cooks beach, and along the way couple of team cyclists flew past me (hey Matt B!), who all seemed to have much fresher and faster legs than I did. As much as I tried, I was unable to keep hold of anyone’s wheel for any decent amount of time!
Towards the end of the cycle leg, I approached the final big hurdle of day one; Pumpkin Hill. By this time, my legs were completely smashed! So it was straight into a granny gear for the slow and painful crawl up the dreaded hill. I reached the top after quite a few minutes of pain and decided I hated pumpkin even more now. Luckily, from here I was then able to enjoy a sweeping decent down into Tairua to complete my longest ever day of racing (and there was still day two to go!).

Day Two

Saturday night was a pretty sleepless one. I was on a total sugar and caffeine high from all the gels I had consumed during the day. However, it was back up again, nice and early, for round two!
Day two kicked off at 8.30am Sunday with a 40km road cycle from Tairua. It was nice being able to watch the multisport competitors take off in the kayaks at 8am before we started. We had a rolling start for the first cycle leg, so it was nice and controlled. I was just starting to enjoy myself hanging out in the main bunch when the speedsters of the group decided it was time to kick into action. With the pace picking up, the bunch soon split into two groups where I positioned myself near the front of the second group – not wanting to go out too hard on the first leg. The big hill 13km out of Tairua split our bunch up even more, and I managed to keep up with the front group after the hill, with four other guys. Working together, we had a pretty good, steady pace into Whangamata and T1.
The 18km run began with a long 5km along the road until we hit the Wentworth Valley track. I ran along the road with a guy who was doing the event in a team and we chatted every now and then which thankfully help passed the time on what was a pretty straight forward section. At the end of the gravel road we headed into single track. The track wound its way up through some amazing bush to the Wentworth falls; from here there is a long steady decent down to the Maratoto ford. The scenery up to the waterfall was amazing, which certainly helped to take my mind off my hurting legs. Hitting the downhill section, I once again struggled to keep to a good pace. Anyone who has done downhill running with sore and tired quads knows that it is not very comfortable, and you never really know if your legs are going to be able to catch you if you fall!

Feeling pretty wrecked and now covered in mud, I made it in to T2. Getting on my bike for the final time knowing that I only had 30km of flat road to go was a good feeling. The end was now in sight!

The final road ride was surprisingly enjoyable (thanks to a tail wind) and I managed to catch the guy in front of me. We rode the last part of the ride together into Thames, crossing the line together with a pat on the back.
As always Mum and Dad were there to greet me over the line and I was super happy to finish first individual female. The Coromandel Classic had lived up to all expectations; with great people, an awesome relaxed atmosphere, some ridiculously tough racing, and beautiful scenery. Oh and they even put on some spectacular weather for us!
Congrats to Brendan who took out the duathlon title overall, against some tough competition, despite dislocating his shoulder on the run on day one (?!). Also congrats to Matt B who totally smashed the bike sections in his two man team - I had no chance of holding your wheel as you flew past! And to Lysaght Consultants, who came in second in the four person team multisport event. 
Finally, thanks to Mum and Dad for being my support crew and supporters over the weekend.

For more info on the Coromandel Classic, check out www.coromandelclassic.co.nz/
Han.