Taming the Taniwha...

Event 31 was the launch of a very special part of the challenge. For 4 weeks I would run 2 events per weekend to get ahead of the game for the Christmas break.... and then complete the year with 2 of the hardest events in the country!

Where better to start than on the banks of the mighty Waikato River.

I had run almost all of the Northern part of the River Trails, but the section for the Taniwha was totally new to me, starting at Managkino and heading upriver though Whakamaru and on to the finish at the Whakamaru Christian Camp positioned right in the river (on an island)!

Because all of the different events started at varying places along the river, I didn't get to see a lot of my friends on the day... I did catch up with Amanda Heapy - who I had met in a couple of recent events following her move down from Auckland - at the start and we ran together for a while in my efforts to run at an easy pace to save some energy for Sunday's run.... but after a while she told me to go away, as I was running too fast!

Friends Nat Thompson and Ash Parmar were both running the same event and I had hoped to run with them, but I think they hid at the start as I didn't see any sign of them... although Nat assured me later that they were just held up in the loo line!

The course was not as flat as I might have expected, gently rolling is probably a better description, the total amount climbed in the end being about 300m which is on the low side for a trail half and way on the high side for a road run!

However as there were no massive climbs it was still hard work in places with such regular ups and downs. After the first lake/river section we crossed a fabulous swing-bridge (I love swing-bridges) and then along a bit more trail and into Whakamaru... we ran through part of the power station there and over the dam, always cool to run over a dam with water way up high on one side and a big valley on the other, truly amazing creations.

Then back into well manicured trail, being part of the national cycleway most parts are more like gravel footpath than single trail... but there were some neat spots.

Getting to the last few km's and I could not help myself and started to push things a bit and was happy in the end with a 2:16 time.

My lovely daughter Kate was also there, running the 7km... which funnily enough started to the South of the finish (we started to the North) and cam at it from the other end of the trail. She did great finishing 4th in her age-group in a good time of 50 minutes. And of course Lainy was there to support having been a fantastic taxi driver dropping both Kate and I off at our starts and then meeting us at the finish.

Then we got to sit on the grass, have a sausage and enjoy the sun on a fantastic day!