The Goat 2023

on

 The Goat 2023

21 January 2023




19km, 1250m vert.

The Video
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The Buildup
I trained pretty well for this race. Xmas and New Year involved running every second day on hilly 2 hour runs. My weight was about 71kg by race day, which was somewhat off my lightest, but not bad.

The Leadup
There had been plenty of trash talk leading up to this event, with uncertainty surrounding our relative fitness levels, and a fair amount of trepidation based on the risky rock-hopping course. Brett, Neil and Michal weren't available, but me, Barnaby, Will and Neville were keen as mustard.

Barnaby kindly drove us down and we stayed in a cute old cottage just around the corner from the Powderkeg in Ohakune.


This race was 'redemption' for Barnaby, since his previous attempt ended in ankle disaster!

The day dawned a bit drizzly and very cloudy in Ohakune, but by the time we were ready to start, the weather had cleared and we had basically perfect conditions all day - sunny, warm and windy. Yay!




The Race
We 4 got the bus to the start line at Whakapapa ski field, and were nicely all placed together to start in wave 1B.




Predictably, we shot out of the blocks at ridiculous pace on the first downhill road section, clocking 3:41 for the first km.




We soon turned off onto the 'round the mountain' track, and started fighting hard to maintain any sort of pace on the loose, shifting, jagged rocks.




Nev was going fast, and quickly opened up a small lead over Will, me and Barnaby. After a few kilometers of bombing down the trail, it got more undulating, but our relative positions remained the same as Nev pulled clear by about a minute or more. 




By about kilometer 5, Barnaby slowly got further behind Will and I, due to him falling over several times (apparently performing both a forward roll and a backwards roll for the entertainment of any onlookers) and being sensibly slightly cautious about the integrity of his ankle ligaments.








By about the 12km mark, after struggling up some mean hills and carefully bombing down some valleys, we were getting hot and bothered. The temperature was increasing and I was drinking plenty of water and keeping up with my food intake strategy. We were all puffing hard.





We got down into the last big valley, through the narrow boardwalks, and started climbing again past the hut. Nev, Will and I were running most of this section with a very fast woman (who we later found was the 52 year old national champ Sue Crowley).

As we hit the climb up the waterfall I kept a strong pace while Will and Nev dropped a few minutes behind me. Yay!! I was suffering from the beginnings of cramp in my right calf and inner thighs, but I swigged some poison and it never got bad enough to affect me.



































Will started the dreaded Mama's Mile climb a little bit behind Nev, but managed to overtake him just before the finish and beat him by an infamous 13 seconds! Ouch!






Wrap
Barnaby held on to finish a few minutes behind Will and Nev, while I stayed a couple of minutes ahead.
Overall we were nearly 10 minutes slower than last year, although we collectively don't know why!
I wore my orange Hoka Tecton X super speedy shoes, which were excellent. (If it had been wet, then *maybe* something with more grip would be warranted. There were a few very muddy bits (which we fell/jumped into))
During the run, I ate a Moro bar after 40 minutes, and then a few gels. (I had a gel and AI and 2x NoDoze pre-race)
An awesome fun weekend away.

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