Staying at Te Kouma Harbour Cottages was ideal for our assault on the Colville Connection race. It was a beautiful, scenic and quiet spot to have as our base. It was only 10 min drive from Coromandel and 45 min drive from the start at Colville.
A team of 17 of us travelled together and stayed here so that we could take part in the race. There was myself, Leigh and Lucy and Margaret; Roger and Shirley and Shannon; Paul and Gareth along with Hamish, Glen and Brazil; and Brian, who had to room with the Lost Boys of Barry, Destry, Rowie and Karl.
All of our team did very well in the racing. Brazil was 4th in the 72k Junior Mens event, Lucy was first in the 25k Junior Women's event and Shannon was 3rd in the 40k Junior Men's event.
The full results are on the colvilleconnection website.
I was 5 mins faster than I have done the 75k before, despite taking 10 minutes longer (55 min in total) to walk to the top of the big hill because of the very slippery conditions. Leigh was about 20k faster than her best.
Brian, Barry and Destry were first timers and had mixed views of the race. The hill is brutal and the 30k slog home along the gravelled coast road is abit draining.
Hamish was up with a good group with 15 k to go when his deraillieur blew apart. He finished by running the last 10K.
A highlight was ordering $120 of fish and chips at the Coromandel Fish and Chip shop.
A disappointment waas the Lost Boys feeling the pace and trying to crash early on Saturday night. We visited them to ensure they didn't miss out on the stories and get too much sleep.
We had a great weekend. Check the photos.
2 comments:
Great story Maurie, you obviously put a lot of time and effort into this blog. Keep up the good work!
PS: Cant wait for the stories/photos on the adventure race training.
Hi Maurie,
Hope all is well with you. Megan said you went to the Blues Festival at Whitianga. I had been half thinking of doing a holiday again in NZ and taking it in as Wilco were playing it, They did three dates in NZ in March. They are great live, did you manage to catch them? Think I managed to see them about 5 times last year in UK, Spain and Ireland. Good news about Sam, no doubt see you when you head over here in a couple of months, Kevin
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