TheGoat 2021
27 February 2021
19km, 1116m vert.
The Video
The Buildup
I had a great buildup to this race. I'd been targeting it for months, and training hard. My weight dropped down to 69kg by race day.
Da Boyz
We had a great weekend away. Me, Barnaby, Will, Neville, Brett and Michal drove down and stayed at at a railway cottage in Ohakune. (which was basic but great).
I had a great buildup to this race. I'd been targeting it for months, and training hard. My weight dropped down to 69kg by race day.
Da Boyz
We had a great weekend away. Me, Barnaby, Will, Neville, Brett and Michal drove down and stayed at at a railway cottage in Ohakune. (which was basic but great).
The Weather and Course
Finally! After 2 years of being stitched up by health and safety concerns, the weather was perfect. No wind, but totally cloudy and a bit cool. Dry. The change of event timing (into February) was a good idea.
PreStart
Da Boyz
Race Briefing
The Run
We got the bus up to the start, and Me, Will, Nev and Barnaby were ready for starting wave 1B, with Brett and Michal in 1C, 3 minutes after us.
As expected, we took off down the Whakapapa mountain road like whippets. 3:45m/km and faster for the first 2km as we pelted down the road on cold legs.
Looking good!
At 2km, we turned off the road onto the extremely rough mountain path. Our speed halved immediately. The track consisted of rocks of varying sizes and shapes, half of which moved when you stepped on them, scattered over a landscape of craggy hills and small stream valleys.
Will and Neville zoomed off into the distance at an unwise pace, while Barnaby and I kept together near the front of our wave of runners.
Unfortunately Barnaby took a mis-step and went over on his ankle. Ouchy! I stopped to 'help' him with some useless comments like "it isn't far back to the road", before leaving him to the vultures and carrying on. It looked sore enough that I expected him to be heading back to the start for a relaxing drive home. (more on this later....)
I carried on, having completely lost sight of Nev and Will ahead. I was feeling good, and starting to gain more and more confidence on the terrain. (ie, I only fell a few times, and so my 'acceptable risk factor' kept increasing). It was bloody fun to bomb down the tracks! My caffeine tablets were keeping me alert, heh heh...
At about the 7km mark, I started to get a few glimpses of the lads ahead of me, and I slowly came up behind them as they slowed somewhat from their initial frenetic pace. I didn't call out to them as I sneaked up behind, since I thought it would be a lovely jubbly surprise for them to see me up with them :)
Just as I approached them, they were crowding behind (well, they phrase it differently) a young woman, who for whatever reason (but most likely to avoid being passed by Will and Nev) decided to slip on a boulder and collide head-first with a rock wall. As the boyz were providing some first aid to the lady (who was nearly knocked out and had damaged her forehead), I finished my catch-up maneuver. (the woman very surprisingly went on to come 2nd overall female by just 30 seconds. Without her fall she would have won!)
wait... is that Barnaby!!?? What about that right ankle...??
The three of us lads then ran together all the way up and down and up and down and eventually descending to the big valley. This included lots of narrow (like, 12 inch narrow) boardwalks which, when turning corners at speed, were pretty tricky to negotiate. Still, they made a nice change from the rock trail.
At the 14km mark, we reached the low point, the Mangaturuturu Hut, and approached the dreaded waterfall and 400m of climbing. I was feeling good at this point - not aerobically challenged and hearing Nev puffing beside me was giving me some confidence that I was travelling well.
Heading up onto the big climb, Will started to slow (or 'crash and burn' as he later phrased it), and I moved ahead of him and also Nev.
The stream and waterfall is beautiful. You wouldn't want to slip and fall into it, but fortunately the rocks were dry and the footing good.
There were a few stream crossings, but I kept my feet dry the entire day through some rock-hopping antics.
(I think Nev was in incognito mode with his race number covered up throughout most of the race, so no photos of him unfortunately...)
On the climb back up onto the Turoa Rd, I started to get some cramping in my legs - mostly my right inner hammy. I jolted back some lovely salty vinegar juice a couple of times as needed, which seemed to completely fix the situation for about 10 minutes at a time.
Once up onto Mama's Mile, I could see Neville behind me a reasonable distance, and I knew that as long as my cramp didn't stop me running that he couldn't catch me. A tough last km, but the end was sweet :)
After some dithering and to-ing-and-fro-ing, Barny had decided to continue on with the race ('Its just a flesh wound!'), and somehow completed it in a quite respectable time. Meanwhile the rest of us had assumed he would make his way back to the house somehow and had deserted the mountain in favour of beer and chips.
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| Uggh! |
Results
Dave 2:41:03 (1st 50+)
Neville 2:42:09
Will 2:44:54
Michal 2:53:57
Brett 3:22:48
Barnaby 3:57:39
Covid / Drive home
We were super super lucky to be able to run in this event. Monday we were in covid-19 lock down, Saturday we ran, and Sunday 6:00am we were back in lockdown! We did have a slight issue with the police roadblock queue when driving home to Auckland. Over 5 hours in a 5km queue. We entered the queue as tolerant, kind human beings. We exited as deranged homicidal maniacs who were fortunately unaware of the precise location of 'Case M' and his oh-so-tinder-dry house. But at least I wasn't in my electric car which would probably have required us to turn the air-con off to save battery! Thanks for driving me and Barnaby, Will!
Brett took some backroads and got home with only small queuing issues.
Summary / Post Wrap
A really fun weekend away!
I was super pleased to be back running strongly, after a year or more of feeling a bit inadequate! I reckon most of my performance gains were due to: (in order)
- Losing 4kg
- Training consistently (plenty of hills and then a high speed taper couple of weeks)
- Highly motivated :)
- Caffeine Tablets
- Training in Hoka Bondi shoes
- Beetroot on Thursday (who knows???)
I took my normal Replace Gel 40 mins before the start and every 40 mins during. We didn't need much water (I drank about 600ml?) due to the cool conditions. I got pretty sore legs (mostly quads) post race. I ran in US size 11 Saloman SpeedCross 5 trail shoes, which were perfect in every way. I didn't take a camera/gopro to save weight and to avoid distractions. I had 2 NoDoze 100mg caffeine tablets before the race (along with a neurofen), and one 40 minutes into the run.
Brett did very well for 5th in 60+, but was afterwards thinking that with a few tweaks on the day he could have saved 6 minutes and got up to 2nd place.
Nev was very pleased to have beaten his 2017 PB. (As did Will)
Barnaby's ankle turned out not to be broken. A nasty sprain. (Somehow I doubt the recommended treatment would normally involve running for 3 hours on it, but I'm not a doctor.)
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| Got the socks! |
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