Just up the Road...

Race #43 was a late change of schedule. I had planned on heading to New Plymouth to run a trail half over there. However with Lainy's uncertain situation and upon hearing that Beyond Adventure Racing were running a trail half at TECT Park, a mere 25km up the road... it was a no-brainer.

Sophie from Beyond was only too happy to sponsor my entry and Matt from Podium was the principal sponsor... so it was great to catch up with him as well.

TECT Park is a place I have run many times, in fact I have run pretty much the exact course we used on the day.... and I love it.

There was a small field gathered for the race start. 34 had gone off earlier in the full marathon including Ross Steele, Jonathon Haggar, Stephen Healey, Rebecca Edgecombe and Mike Duckett. Another 34 lined up for the Half. I really hope they can get their fields to grow, as they run a really good fun event and there is nothing else close to Tauranga.

I was pretty comfortable at first and set a steady pace. The first section is a nice little canter around a MTB Loop near to the start and once finished takes you past the start again, then another loop to the North and around to the start yet again to give Lainy lots of photo ops.... and then we were out to the back of the park for the course real.

After cruising along a roller coaster grass covered trail for a couple of km we were out on a forestry road for a few hundred metres before heading into one of the best bits of trail in the Park. Buffalo Girl is fast earning a very positive reputation. It winds up and down along a lovely natural path with 3 stream crossings and is just plain nice running.

But as with all lovely trails, it comes to an end only too soon. But then we were onto some new trail for me... I think I have run it once before when part of Buffalo was closed for logging a few years back... but it was a lot more overgrown this year and made for some neat running.

Then back to what I knew and the climb to the transmitter tower is always a gutt-buster. Then we zig-zagged down and then across to Mustang trail... I was probably one of the only runners on the day that had run this trail... they were lucky, ignorance is bliss! It is a tough trail with 4 or 5 really steep climbs, not massively long climbs... but enough to get your blood pumping.

At the end of Mustang and all that was left was the road to the finish ... down, down, down the hill and then that last 'finish you off' climb to the finish. In the end I got home less than a minute under 2 hours for 10th place overall. Quite happy with that. Got to catch up with Dennis DeMonchy at the finish who had cruised home for second and have a chat with sponsor Matt and meet the very lovely Lyn Taylor, who had kept Lainy company while her daughter Steph was out on her first half marathon.

Really enjoyed the day and I think having Lainy with me after such a tough couple of weeks allowed me to relax and enjoy the day a bit more.