The Cattle's Revenge...

The fourth and final event for the 2013 Hammer Nutrition Hawkes Bay Trail Run Series was the
Eskdale Krazy Kiwi aound the trails and MTB Trails of the Eskdale MTB Park.

The tribe decided on a day trip on the Sunday, as Kate had run really well in the Tough Gal in Rotorua (right) the day before... those guys really are nuts!!

So, off we went, 5:30am start got us to the base at just before 8am... my usual one hour before. The thing that has really impressed me about this series is the overwhelming friendliness of the Hawkes Bay runners.... both at the start and in the race. Often during races I have had chats with runners about the challenge and they have been really supportive. Nice to catch up with Kristian Day there for the run in his backyard and Ruby Muir fresh from her heroics overseas at altitude... I only saw them briefly at the start and then they were gone...

Phil stressed in the race briefing that the course was thoroughly marked out, that if we followed the red ribbons and the red arrows we would have no problems.

So we did, the race got away... straight through a nice big puddle at the second corner to cool down the feet and into the first climb of the day 100m vertical in the first half a kilometre and I was thinking back to Waharau! But this course was to be more of an up and down repeatedly course, rather than the one up and one down of Waharau. My left calf that had been niggly after a training run Thursday, blew up after only about 1.5km... but I just
ran with the pain for the rest of the run and ignored it (as you do) and

Photo by Allan Ure of  Photos4Sale

The going was good though, plenty of mud again, some of the uphills were a lot of fun and not far removed from Kate's Tough Gal the day before. Again my Inov-8 X-Talon's saved me countless times where I saw other take a slide.

We were doing well, jinking in and out of trails, following the arrows when we hit a patch where there seemed to be no markings, but we all knew that the arrow had pointed into that trail, so we kept going... only to bump into about 10 of the runners from ahead of us backtracking. We all stopped for a Hui and decided that we should carry on. There were enough locals in the group to know where we were heading.

So we traversed a series of forestry roads roads and some trails and eventually intersected with the correct course again. After the finish it was decided that the cattle in the area had knocked over some signs... seems to me more like a MTB rider ploy... LOL

Once on the right route we then bumped into some mid course runners who had missed their turn as well... they were pointed in the right direction and away we went.

This whole escapade added another 2 or 3km to the run
and by the time we were starting to make our way down the trails the effects of that and the week befores runs were starting to take effect and the calf was aching heaps just to top it off.

Finally there was a bit of trail that beat my Inov-8's and I got my first muddy shorts in the 16th race of the challenge... from the amount of screaming and laughing I heard behind I think that my slide was a baby compared to some. Some of the downhill MTB trails we were on were near vertical and just straight out mudslides!

Funnily enough, the bit that hurt the most was flat... the last 4km was a flat run along the riverside on a very pleasant wee trail, but I was knackered and the calf did not like me running consistently flat for that long, the ups and downs had allowed it a bit of relief... but flat hurt. So I just ran faster... I figured that the faster I ran, the quicker i would finish, so I gave it everything I had (which wasn't much).

Eventually the final straight appeared with Allan Ure from Photos4Sale to catch me in my pain and Kate there with him snapping away. Lainy was at the finish line and so between them they got some great pics. 2:48:22 was my time for 3rd in age group which is my best result of the series... so others must have found it tough too!

Also at the finish line my medal for finishing 4 races in the series and my shirt for finishing all four halfs! I thoroughly enjoyed this series and really want to thank Phillip and Louise Shambrook for sponsoring 52 in 52's entries. Every race was different and brought different challenges. My average time was about 2:25 which is a good time for a trail half... it means you have had to work your butt, but still ran most of it!

I will be back in the Hawkes Bay, but not for a while... and I will miss it and the fantastic people!