IT Consultancy and Adventure Racing

Being at a loose end with Rachel away for a conference, I decided I'd enter the Porirua Grand Traverse for an organised training session.

Having spent the previous day doing navigation training around Eastbourne, I'd managed to twinge my knee about 10 minutes before finishing, so spent all the time between waking up and getting to the start line at Battle Hill complaining about the ache in my knee, and having Helen inform me that she would actually be quite happy to head back to bed rather than spend the day running around after me. Seeing as we'd both made the effort to get up, and I was fairly sure the bike would act as a good warm up, we ended up arriving at Battle Hill late ( before the briefing but after Hicksy, so must have been late ), DaveT had picked up my race bib, had offloaded it on Caroline as I was running late, so we sorted out the bike, went and found Caroline, did a little warm up and headed off to the start line.

The start was in a crescent shape and I was far on the right of it, near the road out of BH, but I saw a couple of orange cones straight ahead, past the road and aimed for them. There was a bit of an introduction by local notaries before the start and then the weirdest thing - a countdown to the start, where people didn't leave until the 'go' - very odd. I headed for the cones, straight across the mass of people heading for the road - Doh!

I managed to turn onto the road and was heading along in about 20th up and over the first climb, passing a couple of people on the way through the river, and then spying Hicksy ahead I put the effort in to reel him in, and did so reasonably soon.

I had decided as this was effectively a training session that I wanted to try and keep pretty well pinned the whole race, so was keeping an eye on my HR, aiming for high 150s, and managed to keep quite nicely in the zone - it's a lot easier on a geared bike - so I kept the work rate on all the way up the hill, picking off a couple of people, but as I discovered at the top, not managing to shake Dave.

Over the top and the ride has apparently opened up a lot since last year - it was a fast Forestry road descent with a lot of loose corners that only caught me out once or twice, and I only saw one crash on - the guy said he was OK, so we carried on, coming out onto the tar seal with 3 guys just in front.

Hicksy said "let's get on them" and gave me a shove up the hill - thanks Dave - we soon caught them and led them down to SH58, crossed over and headed up Belmont rd in a little peloton.

There was a guy in front that we were slowly reeling in, and as we caught up to him it turned out to be Paul Chaplow, who was a bit disappointed to find that Dave ( they were in the same class ) was just behind. A young'un on a hard tail and in Francaise des jeux kit came past on the climb and dusted us to the top, for us to catch him again on the downs - not surprisingly as it was pretty rough and the full suspension bikes that we were on would have been worth a bit of time.

Over the top and down the side PC had about 10 secs on me which I reeled in with the time honoured philosophy of "if someone can ride it at that speed I can ride it a little quicker", so we rode together through Cannons Creek, where I block passed him through onto the road crossing, then we to-ed and fro-ed on the 2nd half.

Paul decided to lie down just before the railway station, but this obviously spurred him on as he then sprinted past me into transition, which we arrived at about a minute before Dave. A reasonable transition had me out onto the run just before Paul, and he kindly let me past, and I slowly started to pull away, his recent cycle touring trip in South America meaning that he hadn't been doing much running recently. Up the track onto Colonial knob and there was an arrow on the 2nd bridge pointing into the bush - right where 2 DOC tracks started!

After 10 secs of hesitation, I thought "screw this I'm taking the track" and slogged up the way I ran with Dave and Barry a couple of weeks ago - seeing a marker painted on the track a couple of hundred metres later convinced me that I was in the right and someone had been playing silly buggers!

The next 1.5K or so was a mix of walking up the steps and forcing myself to jog the flatter sections in between as we climbed 300m, this was certainly 17 minutes during which I had no trouble keeping my heart rate up in the high 150s!

As the approach to the top flattened out a bit, and my pace improved to a fast hobble, a team runner came past, and then coming out of the bush I informed the Marshal about the arrow, but apparently they were already onto it, so I could have saved my precious breath!

Along the top, the team runner slowly pulled away, and then we crossed a makeshift stile and headed downhill into some pretty rutted farmland, when the nasty side wind had me removing my hat to stop losing it, and worrying about my footing as my eyes started to stream, and the damage of many years of cattle farming left the footing extremely uneven. Downhill does tend to be my strength though, so I was pleased to still be going fast enough to pass a woman on the downhill, and then looking back on the way up the other side of the valley, there was a good distance back to anyone else.

Over the top of the next ridge and I could see a new red shirt in front of me, which was nice as it's always good to have a target!

As I caught the red shirt, it turned out to be Dave Aldred, a MTB racing friend who's been branching out into running and Duathlons ... unfortunately he seems to have been concentrating a bit much on the riding recently, and was suffering quite badly with several K still to go ;-(

As Dave and I exchanged pleasantries, a whirling dervish came flailing down the hill past us both, arms akimbo. This was highly concerning, not just for the guy's safety, but also due to the fact that I thought I had had clear space behind me only a few minutes before!

The runner turned out to be James Coubrough, a very accomplished Wellington mountain runner, so I bid him farewell and got on with the task of finishing the run as close behind him as possible, and hoping that he was racing as part of a team ;-)

We headed down to the beach, and I watched James pull away until he was out of sight. From Round point we headed up a road, to turn left at the top and down another road into Stuart Park. This was probably the least pleasant part of the run and resulted in someone gaining on me during the road, through Stuart Park, where I had the horrible realisation as I saw Titahi Bay that there was still miles to go! and then passing me onto the Beach.

Along the beach and there was a good crowd of people cheering us into Titahi Bay and a couple of families outside their houses on the slog up to Whitireia, who looked like they were having a much better day than the competitors.

Coming into Whitireia park I was surprised to see 2 people in front - the guy that had just passed me and what appeared to be James, unfortunately he didn't get any closer as I ran over the top of yet another hill, and as I climbed a fence by the golf course my left leg cramped wickedly, an issue that I would have to manage for the last couple of K, during which I didn't see James at all ;-(

Through the park and down to the foreshore there were a bunch of kids around doing the cycle section of their challenge course, who were very civil in letting me past/ passing me, and seemed to be having fun which was good to see - this event really does try and involve the whole community, how they manage to get so many kick-arse marshals standing out on those exposed sections of the ride and run I will never know!

Coming onto the road by Onepoto Barry cheered me on - obviously having pulled out, he had stuck around to help DaveT do his transitions, and had been joined by his wife Jo - and some Duathlete team runner came screaming past, just to rub in the difference between my current pace and what I would like to have been running at.

Into transition, and Helen had been joined by Stephen, who had finished his marshaling duties, and as I was putting my spprayskirt on, Micheal Jacques said "you can win this Liam". I had assumed James was in a team, but he was leading solo and was getting onto the water about a minute in front of me ... sweet!

Digging it in, I slowly reeled James in, cutting across the sandbank by the bridge proved worthwhile, and I caught him around Shearers Point. He jumped on my wash, but the sideswell around Moorehouse Pt must have knocked him off. Julio was in the winning team and came back towards me at this point, followed by a ski looking very dodgy in the side swell.

Using the surf into Browns Bay I pulled away from James and caught up towards a sea kayak that I passed rounding Moorehouse Pt on the way back out.

I went through a strange set of emotions here, wondering what to do and whether I was actually enjoying being in the lead - it seems that I prefer racing to winning!

Anyway, I shook that off enough to keep a decent pace up (for me, it was still 5 minutes down on the fastest individuals ;-( ), and tried to use the swell through the harbour as much as possible.

Coming down towards the boat ramp the ski in front ( who had been overtaken by a 3rd ski ) was looking very dodgy still, but not enough for me to actually catch him unfortunately. My support crew had grown again as Helen, Stephen and Jerry hauled me out of the water - apparently Jerry had spotted me a way out by "his ugly paddling style".

I actually managed to run across the line which I was very happy with - the cramp had not really come on any more in the boat which was a good thing, and even though there was a (slight) rise from the boat ramp, Helen's encouragement saw me through.

4:51, and absolutely stoked - with James about 4 minutes back and next across the line.

Glenn Muirhead fought back from a broken chain to beat Dave and Paul in the Vet's class, and Wellington welcomed Fleur Pawsey back from Christchurch with a win in the women's individual class.

Helen was very pleased - I think she likes crewing for winners ;-)

Huge thanks have to go to Helen, who rushed me out of transitions all day, and recruited more people to help her as the day wore on, and to Go Fast, Burkes Cycles, Fergs Kayaks, inov-8 shoes and Fabrum for ongoing help with participating in this silly, fun pastime of mine!