52 in 52 for Hospice!: Charting New Territory...

The next of the many fabulous Total Sports Events was all the way up at the Northern tip of the Coromandel Peninsula at Colville.

Conrad Kuriger

We were fortunate again to be sponsored to stay at the wonderfully situated Top 10 Holiday park at Shelly Beach. We enjoyed our stay there so much that we have booked in for a week over Christmas!

Again, many great friends were there, Lyndsey and Damien Anselmi were there for the Marathon, as was marathon man Ross Steele. I was also fortunate enough to meet up with Janet Marsh, a friend from my late 20's living in Lower Hutt. She was up with her hubby, he was riding, she was running!

Janet Marsh

Conrad Kuriger from Tauranga was also there and we saw a bit of each other during the race.

This race was to be quite a different challenge to any other so far... we started out for the first 2km on sealed road, then up onto a dirt/gravel road that climbed steadily until after 5km we had climbed 200 metres vertical and there were already some wonderful views.

The dirt road got dirtier as we went up and was muddy as we headed down the other side... so muddy in fact that the MTB riders were having to pick up their bikes and carry them. About halfway down I went to pass another runner calling out "on your left" and as I did she promptly moved left sending me into the broom beside the trail... a bit of blood and a lot of mud and I was back on the go and we came out the bottom, firstly onto farmland trail and then onto dirt road.

Then lots of dirt road, but it was interesting and reasonably enjoyable. Just before we left the farmland Conrad and Janet both passed me together. I hung on behind both of them for the next few kms.

When we got to the second to last hill and the last big one, Conrad stopped for a drink and Janet and I carried on. On the uphill Janet stopped to adjust her backpack and I pulled a bit ahead thinking she would soon be back... but neither of them were seen again until the end. On the other side of the hill we hit seal road again for the last 5km.

Conrad had a recurrence of a problem that has plagued him for a while now getting serious cramps later in runs. Janet said she just hit the wall and crashed... I know that feeling.

I got there in 1:58:35 and was pretty happy with that, finishing in 3rd for my agegroup.

This was one of the harder runs in that there was quite a bit of all the different surfaces. I ran in trail shoes and that was probably the best decision, but with over one third of the race on sealed road they took a hammering.