I’m not quite sure where to start this, but here goes… After the “mistake” of support crewing last year, I suddenly got inspired to give Coast to Coast yet another crack. With Covid being around for the past 4 years, I feel like I’ve lost a bunch of years of profiting from my mid 30’s. Somehow, I’ve reached the scary point where the daunting age of 40 is on the horizon. Before heading into a midlife crisis I thought this would be my last big crack at it. I had envisioned putting a lot of work in to this “campaign”, enough that I could quite happily walk away and be satisfied with having had a great build up and pulling out a great* race performance.

*BTW I’m totally aware that the chances of having the absolute perfect race on the day you want it to happen is almost like winning lotto. So by “great” I mean something that I could be satisfied I’d given my best shot, and left it all out there.

Life is never as straightforward as the plans you make…. once my entry came through I set about having a short running break of a few weeks, ready to hit the Coast training hard. Unfortunately during these weeks off “normal” training I managed to pick up an Achilles niggle. It took weeks and then months to come right, I’m even unsure whether at some point it switched from one leg to the other! This really cut into the base running training phase.

Next excuse…. in September I went to Australia on a MTBO tour. It went well, except the day before returning I accidentally rode over a retaining wall. I didn’t see it until too late and messed myself up. Immediately after I had quite a sore righthand side, including a good graze on the knee and a bloody sore shoulder. It wasn’t until a week later that I really noticed the ribs. The pain the ribs was so sore that kayaking and TT bike training had to be put on hold for around 6 weeks.

And…the excuses continue. The week that I felt the ribs had finally recovered, I kicked off my now foreshortened training campaign. Two days in and I pick up a cold. Two more days down as recovery and on my bike ride home I decided to take a longer way home since I had missed out on quite a bit of training that week already. The route home normally took me on a short gravel path, however I discovered a bit of new seal, so of course I rode on that. I didn’t see the camouflaged black speed bump that had been put down on the nice new asphalt. I hit it with speed and on an angle. BANG! my bike kicked up like a horse trying to buck the rider off. My faithful stead succeeded, next thing I know I’m picking myself up of the pavement. Once the adrenaline and frustration wore off, I noticed my left side ribs (opposite to Aussie crash) were quite painful. It seems I might have reaggravated a previous rib breaking fall injury. This meant another 6 weeks of nursing cracked ribs, another 6 weeks of avoiding TT position, intense running, and kayaking. The Taieri Mouth Multisport race was supposed to be my kick in the pants to show me where I was in terms of Coast to Coast, instead it resulted in probably making the ribs even worse, especially the kayak section.

With all that bad luck I wasn’t completely ready to give in, so with 8 weeks to go I managed to lock in a pretty solid block of training in preparation. It was never going to be pretty, but I still had to have some faith in myself that I’d get to the start line in good shape.

This being my 4th longest day I thought to reduce the stress and to make sure I wasn’t running around on Friday night like a headless chicken still sorting gear, I would head to the coast on Wednesday beforehand. This worked out really well, I arrived with plenty of time for everything and plenty of time to relax beforehand too. It was made all the much better by having Mum and Graham join me for these days beforehand too.

Jason, my key support personnel arrived on Friday night beforehand and we did a quick run through, then it was into bed to lie down for a few hours and pretend to sleep.

By 4am I was already awake, so getting ready was a quick an easy process. Even with what felt like all the time in the world it still slipped away on us for our exit time. Not long after I racked my bike, a nervous final toilet stop and then the start line reunion. Lots of familiar faces and lots of nervous chatter before the final countdown.

Off the beach it was mad rabbit pace as per usual. I had to grab onto someone in front at one point so that neither of us tripped up. Before the slight hill climb onto the main road things had settled down though. I was positioned in the middle to front of the elite women’s pack. At one point, I thought I could have held onto the front gap of Elite men but I thought better of it because I’ve cooked myself on the first 3km run before and it was pretty much over that early on.

I was reasonably happy to be in the smallish second bunch as we headed up the road. I  initially thought it was maybe 30 odd, but once the rotating started it felt it was much bigger. This made it quite surge-y, especially with a mix of smaller Elite females shirking turns where possible, bigger dudes with ego’s riding off the front end and then the lowly weasels like myself doing a mix of both!

Getting through to Aitkens without incident is always quite a relief. Also a relief we just missed the train by mere seconds! Transition was surprisingly straightforward considering how many people were coming through. Just my luck, and similar to my last Coast to Coast, Deb and support crew were transitioning right next to me. Somehow in the chaos she moved or was unbalanced for a second and I ran right into the back of her! Last Coast I was next to Clare (also a GZ team mate) and she accidently threw her helmet into my backside!

Shoes off, shoes on, pack on, hat in hand, gone. Simple. I was now worried about cramp, it haunted me last time and I was on the verge again. I ate and drank, then got myself in a good rhythm. I out route-choiced Simone and Deb in the first 500m and built a solid start to my run. I tired my best to keep the cramp away but it just kept coming for me. I had to let Deb and then Simone go, then I was with Elina for a while but just couldn’t keep it together. In the boulders after deception hut, Hannah Lund had to ask me if I was alright as she slipped past me and finally right near Goat Pass I hear a familiar “is that Tane” in amongst quite a bit of chatter from Molly Spark within earshot.

I cramped my way over the pass, then it was goodbye to Molly as she tore off in front. I pulled some ground back after some gels but it appeared it just wasn’t happening today. Once, I got down to the river flats (my favourite part), I was able to settle back into a good space. I caught back Emma who tore past me on a downhill section, then set my sights on catching Elina. I couldn’t quite get there until transition. It truly felt like it was just me vs the Elite Women! 

With a bit of a boost by the Southerly Storm cheering me on I transitioned well. Worked my way through some horrible horrible cramps only for Elina to zoom past me before the bridge. She was immediately almost too slow for me but once there was an uphill I couldn’t match with her and she was gone… but not for the last time today…yet… I was quite eager to get of the bike already and into the kayak. I was a bit nervous, and hadn’t really given it much thought until now.

Sidebar: I only managed to get down the river once before race day due to the ribs. What I hadn’t realised at the time is I was deliberately (without acknowledging it) avoiding opportunities to go too. A couple of years ago I had a bad swim in my Sharp in the Waimak, then about 18months ago another bad/traumatic swim. I managed to get trapped in the Hawera wave/weir, got circulated a couple of times before eventually gave up fighting and (luckily) got washed out. So I guess you could say there was a little bit of unresolved trauma there holding me back.

Jason got me transitioned well but I couldn’t chew the sandwich,  managed to get way too much sunscreen on my hands and didn’t put an extra top on. Getting in the boat was the easy part…couple of paddle stokes in and the sunscreen had made my hands so slippery I could hardly hold the paddle. I desperately wiped them clean and tried to  knuckle down Elina’s group just in front of me. It felt like there was a strong head wind and it had clouded over a bit. I got into a mental hole for a while until I caught up to Molly. 

Catching Molly gave me a boost, and by the time gooseberry came up Elina and some others popped out of a side channel right in front of me. At the timing checkpoint I spotted Deb getting back into her boat after trying to sort some rudder issues. I was now feeling much more positive, as I wasn’t having as much bad luck as some of the others around me…. just the paddle strength was lacking and I couldn’t hold on to them.

As I entered the gorge proper, I had multiple people come past me feeling like I was standing still. I cut a lot of the eddy lines but it seemed to be relatively faster 90% of the time. Mid way through there gorge section there seemed to be a heap of boats around me, way more than I’ve ever been used to in the one day. There was also a variety to skill levels too… a couple of times after negotiating the rapid I saw a number of throw ropes being fired out. Through the lower part, the wind really started to play havoc too. One gust was so strong I really thought I was about to go over. Somehow I held it together.

Confidence in my ability started to build just after I went into quite an interesting rapid before White Rock. I was blocked on where to go, the fast and scary line was taken up with another boat. The eddy next to it was big and menacing, but there was just enough room to cut to the inside of it. As the boat road up and over the eddy line I had an “oh shit” moment but in the half second I had, reiterated to myself I was competent and somehow zoned in to let the unconscious mind take over. Nailed it, got through and had the added advantage of being far right enough to avoid the wave train that the dude next to me who took the hot line fell out in.

It was a perspective changing experience and with a little bit of food down me, by Woodstock I was firing on all cylinders again. It lasted for almost the whole last hour except maybe the last 20 minutes. I knew I needed to pee one more time, but the only way I could manage it was to stop paddling for a second. As I did, a teams paddler came past me. She obviously saw me stop paddling, thought I’d given up a little and offered me some encouragement “not far to go now!” I didn’t let on the real reason I’d stopped paddling! Getting to the gorge bridge is always quite a relief, getting out of the boat is another story!

The team at the kayak pull out were great, lifted me up and out but I had to get them to drop me in the water to wash me down. The guy pulling me out didn’t quite understand straight away but luckily the women grabbing my paddle was able to explain it to him quickly and efficiently! Dunked and on my feet again it was probably the toughest 20m of my life getting those legs going again. Jason and Graham met me, gathering my gear as I went up the hill. I heard some serious puffing behind me, not sure who that was maybe someone who had got out about the same time as me?!

Transition was good, dry clothes and a jacket on as the Southerly had just hit, rain was coming. The fantastic tailwind down South Eyre Road was gone for sure. Some more vigorous cheering from the aptly named Southerly Storm Orienteers got me on the bike and over the bridge. The rickety old bridge bumped my bike so much coke bounced up through the aero bottle straw and made a sticky mess all over my arms…

It took about 5mins to settle in, then the first one went past me (yet another Elite woman). That snapped me out of my stupor and back into focus, and I tried to use as much of the little bit of tail wind as I was going to get. While hitting around 44km/h another guy passed me and there was no way I could maintain that sort of speed so there was no point in even trying to increase the pace.

A long 8kms in came the turn to South Eyre Road, straight into the cross head wind… this 45km section was going to be tough. Rain drops on the aero helmet and occasional side gusts kept some sort of focus locked in. I just imagined I was a yacht sailing upwind and did my best to convince myself that this was actually helping me. I had Emma (same Emma from the run) pass me midway along. She went past convincingly fast but eventually I could see I was making ground back. I eventually managed to pass her back and set my sights on the next dude in line that had passed me at over 44km/h earlier.

Towards the end of South Eyre Road, I got some food in me preparing for the Marshlands Road section I knew would be a tough head wind. Only 20kms to go and I got the guy in front, passed him like he was standing still. He even said something as I went past but by that stage my vision was going a bit blurry and my brain was quite fried. I held my own right through to Burwood hospital but by then I’d run out of fuel. I desperately shoved some jelly beans in. They sort of helped but as I turned the final corner the Emma goes zooming past, followed by the other dude Id passed back and just to rub salt into the wound so does another guy. I saw the three of then zoom ahead jostling about, I had nothing left in the tank to try to even get back close to them. 3kms of heartbreaking slogging to the finish line.

As always, that jog up the last few stairs is tough, I made sure I at least put on a smile for the finish this time. I had hoped to take at least 30mins of that time but my run was bad and I missed out on the tail wind that was so helpful to the earlier competitors. It was a satisfactory race, but still left feeling there was more out there to give. And in fact, I was already thinking “can I go back and fix up those mistakes” while getting my gear to leave. I guess any athlete wants to ultimately win (realistic or not), but also achieve their goals and I didn’t manage the “to go under the 13hr mark”. I did achieve the other goal of maintaining some positivity and fight (almost to the end)…

Thanks heaps to my support crew of Mum, Graham and Jason! Very much appreciated.  As well as all friends and Southerly Storm Orienteers who came out and followed along cheering me on when I needed it the most!