Alastair Hines, Coast to Coast
Thanks for your awesome support for the race..
On balance the race was bloody fantastic! Really enjoyed the challenge, achieved my goal to complete the event and the result was ok although a little slower than I had planned.
It was really great to have so much support and friendly faces around during the weekend. The Complete Performance crew really rock!
Had a solid run off the beach in but ended up in a bunch where nobody wanted to do any work so was slow, so I set off to try and catch the next bunch but realised that I wasn’t going to catch them so backed off and waited for for some riders around my pace to catch me up. When they did they were all individuals so a bit slow. Ended up taking 2hrs 10 to first transition.
I just love the run, weather was improving although cold head wind. I had a target of getting up to Goat Pass in 3hrs and managed about 2:55 so was really excited about my potential run time. However about a quarter of the way down the Minga I rolled my ankel! Could still run once it went a bit numb and was determined to run all the way out, all be it a bit slower. Ended up with a run time of 5hrs 30min, 30mins slower than planned. I passed Tarsh on the run and when I got injured she caught me up again. This ended up being a real positive as I was a pissed off about the ankel and Tarsh settled me down and got me back in a positive frame of mind. Tarsh ran an awesome time so it was cool working together. Thanks buddy.
The 15km bike is bloody tough work!! and running down the shinge road with a sore ankel cost me a lot of time. The river was very low and slow, probably similar to last year. We had to portage the 1st Rock Garden rapid as there was no water and the other rock gardens were nasty but great fun with big pressure waves and narrow chutes. I got hammered by a big pressure wave beside Salmon Rock?? there was a very small chute which litterally dropped into this pressure wave. Lots of people got nailed there and yes there is a photo. Felt better when the Oracle himself came swimming down behind me! almost made it ok. Just the one swim though so happy with that considering my lack of river paddling this year. Bloody long paddle though 5hrs 50min.
Awesome ride into town, head wind but managed to average around 35km/hr so 2hrs 15min including transition.
Overall time 16hrs 51mins so pretty slow but really happy with that for a first effort. I was glad to see that Gordon Walker and co took an hour longer than normal due to the head winds in the gorge and bike so makes me feel a bit better.
When I was paddling the last section from Woodstock I wasn’t sure if I would bother doing the event again, by Sunday after the prize giving I’m keen to give the longest day a nudge next year. So we will need to committ to a plan and make sure we get some good time on the course and we’ll get it done.
Richard and the complete performance team are legends. Thank you so much for making my dream a reality and being there with your advice through the good times and the melt downs. (By the way we need to start working on my new programme!)
Well done to all my CP team mates for outstanding efforts over the weekend.
My wife Mel and I are running the Motutapu marathon in 3 weeks time so should be fun. Then maybe a rest!
Cheers
Alastair