XTerra Hunua 2023

 

XTerra Hunua 2023

11 June 2023

24km, 967m, 2:33:25

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/11315604637
https://www.strava.com/activities/9241989619/overview

Race Day

The weather had been lovely fine all week (after much rain earlier in the year!), and the carparking was dry and easy and the trail was mostly dry. It was very cold (and a bit misty) to start with, but no wind.

Racing

I was out on my own today, and I'd decided to go hard early and see how thing developed.

The start is flat on the road for a kilometer before entering the bush, so I raced along in 4:06 to avoid getting stuck behind slow people. There were nevertheless at least several dozen people ahead of me.

I had forgotten just how nice the single track is on the first 10+ kilometers. Really fun and fast, weaving through the forest and skirting the streams (and crossing several).

After 10km I was feeling a bit tired, and slowed somewhat in preparation for the big climb up AWA Drive hill at 13km. I managed to run non-stop up this (albeit slowly) as we overtook some of the Long Course runners.

Pukapuka trail was just as tough and long as always. It was 'mostly' dry, but still with mud sections and infinite damp tree roots and steep climbs and descents. I fell once and grazed my arm, but generally felt reasonably strong and kept a good pace with enforced power walking on the steepest hill parts.

As I came out onto the last road descent I was running fine with no aches and finished pretty well in 2:33 and 24th overall. (1st in 50+)

We had a few other Run Like Crazy entrants, including Michal, Daniel, Sophia and Ed, Helen, Hamish, Helen, Kate, Michelle :)

Wrap

A lovely day for a hard workout.

I had a muesli bar (and one nodoze) 30 mins before the run, and 1 at 40mins (which took 15 mins to eat), and a gel at 1:20, and most of another big muesli bar at 2:00. I think these fueled me just right.

Wearing my Saloman SpeedCross 6 was great. I had been considering my Hoka Tecton X shoes given the 7 dry days leading into this race, but in retrospect the better grip for the mud and roots etc was definitely the right decision.