Rowe Running

Friday morning and I had a good nights sleep – which is perfect as it’s very rare to get a good sleep the night before the race – especially when the alarm is going to wake us up at 3:30am!

We took the campervan straight down to the beach this morning. Sharon had her breakfast whilst I sorted out getting myself ready for a swim. Conditions were marginally better than on Thursday. It was still quite rough but the wind wasn’t blowing a gale! There were quite a few groups of swimmers on the course.

Self portrait during Sharon's long run checking out the Challenge Wanaka marathon course

Sharon headed off for a long run – taking in the first five miles or so of the Challenge Wanaka run course that I’ll be doing tomorrow whilst I jumped back into the lake. The first few minutes were once again pretty horrible – I think its mostly just getting acclimatised to the cold water and the chop. On race morning I will try and get in the water for a bit of a splash around/warm-up prior to the 6:30am start. I met up with a couple of other swimmers – from Christchurch (the one in New Zealand that is!) and we had a good chat whilst swimming gently to the first main turn buoy.

After getting back from the swim it was off to the race briefing in the main marquee. When the Run Course Director came on to talk about the course she let us know that they currently had people out on the course picking up ‘road-kill’ and that they’ve been quite busy! One thing we’ve noticed from driving around the island is that there are a large number of squashed animals on the road. It’ll be nice not to have to swerve round them tomorrow!

Sharon finished her run (pleased to have managed her planned 10 miles) and we headed back ‘home’ for me to sort out my transition bags (the bag I pick up after the swim which contains my bike gear and the one when I transition from bike to run containing my shoes and GPS) and get everything ready for tomorrow.

At around 5pm after a little snooze we headed back to the race site as I had to rack my bike and hand some bags in. One of the bags was the compulsory ‘Special Needs’ bag which will be available at about 90km into the bike course. This has to contain a long sleeve thermal top to wear on the bike if it gets cold (which can happen very quickly in an alpine environment – even with the forecast set to be in the low 20′s on race day.

It’s now gone 7pm. I’ve had a pile of pasta for dinner and am washing it down with some ‘lovely’ Gatorade sports drink! We’ll then have an early night before an even earlier start tomorrow.

If you’ve nothing better to do on a Friday evening then you should be able to follow my progress via this link. My race number is 358 and I’m doing the ‘Challenge Wanaka Individual’ event (there’s a half-ironman distance race taking place the same day). The race starts at 5:30pm UK time on Friday evening (6:30am Saturday morning in NZ). If that link doesn’t work here’s the main link to the results section of the site – http://www.challengewanaka.com/challenge-wanaka-live

The weather forecast for tomorrow is for hopefully a slightly less choppy sea, but increasing westerly winds during the day. The later they increase the better as I’d much rather them affect me on the run than during the bike leg.

I’d like to swim around 1 hour 15 minutes and anything quicker would be a bonus. In silky smooth lake Zurich 2.5 years ago I swam 1:08 and in Germany in 2010 I swum 1:04. This time if I’m close to 1:10 I’d be chuffed to bits. It all depends on the conditions in the morning.

Bike time is much more of an unknown. I’ve turned off the speedo display on my bike GPS as it makes no difference to me. I’m going to try and go purely by my power meter and try my best to not push too hard or too easy. Constant effort throughout is the plan. I hope to push about 230-235 watts during the bike leg. I’m not so sure how long it will take but lets just say something close to 6 hours is what I’m anticipating.

As for the run, a sub 4 hour marathon is what I should be capable of. A 3:45 would be nicer though.

So… ignoring transition times something around the 11 hour mark is my current estimate. In events of this length anything can happen on the day so I just have to play it by ear and hope for the best.

Stay tuned for a later update or feel free to keep an eye on Sharon’s twitter account as she hopes to post some updates during the day.

So… after months and months of saving, planning and a rather long flight from London to New Zealand (where we didn’t really get any jet-lag!!) Sharon and I have been doing lots and lots of travelling in our campervan and sightseeing. During our first week here we visited places including Mount Cook, Queenstown (including the awesome Shotover Jet boat ride), Doubtful Sound (lovely overnight cruise), Milford Sound and after temperatures ranging from absolutely freezing cold (full winter gear on) we’re now in the shorts and t-shirt weather of Wanaka. This is the location of Challenge Wanaka – an Ironman distance race that takes place on Saturday 21st January.

Wanaka as a town is lovely. Not too big, not too small, situated right on a stunning lake with mountain ranges all around. It truly is a stunning location and I can believe it when it is referred to as “The World’s Most Scenic Iron Distance Triathlon.”

After tons of driving/sightseeing and a good dose of rain (i.e., about 48 hours worth of the stuff – non-stop!) training opportunities have been rather limited (my running mileage for last week was about ten miles in total!). My bike has only just been put back together after flying it round the world (which only cost £35 when we checked in at London – bargain!) but first things first, the Radio Wanaka 5km Fun Run on Monday evening.

It’s amazing that the whole town is fully behind Challenge Wanaka. Event flags are flying on lamp posts all down the high street – the regional newspaper had a 12 page event ‘pull-out’ in it a few days ago with details of the race and a full entry list – my race number is 358. The local radio station is always talking about the race and what’s going on in town this week. It really is something special and amazing to be a small part of it all.

Sharon and I arrived in Wanaka on Monday afternoon to be met by blazing sunshine and a very light breeze. Going out for an evening run was meant to be refreshing!

Recycling is big in NZ - So much so that they're re-using last years sign

We jogged down to the lakefront and paid our 10 dollars each (about £9.50 pounds or so) for the two of us to register. The money all goes to a local cause so that’s good. Well over 200 people signed up for the run (or 5k walk) and it was really really warm.

When I went off for a warm-up Sharon kept an eye out for any serious looking athletes and she spotted a few out there. We had a race briefing where we were told that the course had changed slightly to make it a more accurate 5k and before long we were lined up.

Right in front of me were a group of young lads (early teens I’d say) and one of them had a Triathlon New Zealand Squad vest on! Hmn, this could be interesting!

So… the hooter sounded and away we went. A group of four pushed hard from the start and I thought I should try and stick onto them. After about a quarter of a mile I noticed that I was running about 5 minute 15 second milling, which is something like low 16 minute 5k pace. Not bloody likely I’d say!

I eased off slightly and dropped back to sixth place at a pace I was more comfortable with.

About a minute or two later a shout from behind us said “You’re going the wrong way!” – oops! We all turned around, then followed this chap (who was going mighty fast) as he led us back to the ‘real’ course. Sharon had run the correct course all along and it was only a large group of us at the front of the race (I mean fun run) that didn’t turn off at the correct place (the lack of a marshal or sign didn’t help!).

Anyway, back onto the course and before long the positions had re-established themselves and I was in sixth place and the fast guys were back at the front. At this point there were plenty of marshals in place and we were led in the direction of a golf course. We literally ran up a grass bank and across the middle of the course – including one of the putting greens from a hole. I was probably 15 feet away from a golfer as he just watched us all (whilst waiting to take his shot) run across his lovely course!! From here we headed off onto a lakeside path and into the grounds of a local vineyard.

Vineyards like to be positioned on hills. Oh dear. Next thing we were directed up a dusty path and it was hard going. The weather was baking hot – the sun was out and there was nothing ‘fun’ about this run! Well, it was fun but in a painful kind of way!

Eventually we headed back onto the path close to Lake Wanaka and back in the direction of the finish. I spent much of the race running close to the chap in 5th place and in the final km I edged ahead of him and pushed on to take 5th spot. The slight course ‘directional issue’ didn’t make a difference to the overall placings so that’s good.

My GPS measured 3.39 miles and a time of 20:36. Had I had run 5k my time would have been 19:03 which I think is not bad going on the hilly course.

It was a great fun event, lots of people at the finish supporting and spot prizes for a number of the runners (sadly Sharon and I didn’t win).

Sharon finished in 29:19 and her GPS said it was 5k spot on. Lovely. Her first words after finishing when I asked how it was were “Hot, it was hot.”

We then jogged (very) gently back to the campervan site, had dinner and watched the sunset. Lovely.