Auckland Trail Waiuku 2025 (aka XTerra)
20 July 2025
21.85km, 523m, 1:52:38
Race Day
A new course this year for Waiuku, although much of the trails were duplicated. It retained its lovely characteristics of sandy base with layers of pine needles.
I drove Michal, Juliette, Neville, Barnaby, Will and Ed. (Nev's name is conspicuously absent due to his unfortunate misunderstanding of which country he was in). The new race start location was very pretty amongst the pine trees, and we met 50+ leader Michael R (who we wanted to hate on, but had to settle for admiring instead).
I chatted to Lynda P (and her friend Antoinette), who I'd accidentally ghosted earlier in the week... oops!
The day was a bit foggy and cool, but awesomely clear and windless.
Race
We started a few minutes late due to minor traffic congestion, and the fast team sped off. I was feeling good (after a reasonably hard training fortnight), and kept Michal and Barnaby in sight for the first few kilometers. Juliette and Will zoomed away, although Barnaby mostly kept pace with them.
Michal slowed after a bit (4km??) and I overtook him. I ran alongside and chatted to Rudy (top 60+ guy) for a few kilometers until he (thankfully) turned off onto the Long course.
I absolutely loved the Waiuku trails. The downhills were not super steep, but instead were fast and soft underfoot with pine needles and damp muddy sand. The uphills were slow, but I found them ok (albeit I probably ran a little conservatively on them).
The weather was fine and cool, and misty and almost cold in a couple of places when we were on the exposed coastal road at about 15km.
I finished strong and found that Will (1st Vet!) had beaten Juliette (1st female!) (who had suffered from stomach issues), with Barnaby just a teensy 10 seconds further back. Michal was a couple of minutes behind me.
Team 'Run Like Crazy' did super well again (first place), with the Petri and Duffs and friends all smashing it!
Comments
Post a Comment