EC NZ '09 - Day 6

EC NZ ’09 Day 6 – Collingwood – Nelson, Kaiteriteri Aquathon

Another magic morning to awaken to.
Coffees of Hawaii brewed long and strong.
Calm, clear shallow bay to swim in. Life is good.

We started the day with a swim mostly as a make-up for the 3km we missed on Day 3.
Nice swim. No dolphin diving!

Then more coffee and breaky. These people can cook. We never lack for good food on Epic.

8:45am roll-out for the ride towards Nelson with another trip over Takaka Hill enroute and another KOM sufferfest.
Newsom seemed determined to take over G-Man’s role of keeping the group rollin’ and had us motoring towards the mountain at 35-45kph, strung out and hanging on.
It was already balmy and the sun was pelting down as we hit the base of the climb. I was at Max sweat rate within the first 5 minutes and made a sensible call to back off and wait till we got higher to some cooler air and some shade before trying to recover some time. Chris, Marilyn and Bevan didn’t need to attack this time to get a solid gap as we were all pretty dead.
Newsom paced Steven, Ken and I up at a steady clip and I was finally ready to make a move with a km to go and managed to roll past a completely un-suspecting Douglas at the line. He was to get some payback later…….

We rolled down the mountain to Kaiteriteri with Chris and I taking more risks than is reasonable for married men ( me with 3 kids too! ). Boys will play wont’ they……..

Man – what great spot to spend the rest of the day. I was ready to call it a day and perhaps end my camp right there on that little beach. The sun was pelting down and this Desert Lizard was turning purple from the U.V. rays and loving it.
John laid out a nice swim course around some rocks and some buoys and off we went. The swim looked to be around 1200m and the run course estimated by me (I have spent a lot of time here on holiday) was around 8km. Typical Newsom course – fuckin’ lot of steep bloody hills! I was sure my ol’ creaky knee was in for some misery. Newson is the Epic Aquathon King and he seemed determined to make sure to keep his record in tact.

Heath had trouble sighting and got lost. Lucky for us as we came in with him. Lou came around me early and settled on the train of Steven, Chris and Newsom. I remember the last camp Lou came on. He improved immensely through the camp – especially his swimming and once again he seemed to be a different guy in the water.
Once on land Newsom raced away.
Lou had a great run too. Now that he’s in the 45-49 I’m sure you’re going to see him on the podium at some tri’s this year. He ripped his hamstring off the bone last year at the Triple T and is finally finding some form.
The real mover in the Aquathon was Bevan who ripped it to come in second.
I was happy just to finish and thought I might as well hold off Douglas since he was a couple of minutes back out of the water but he motored past me like a damn Kenyan with 600m to go and just nipped me at the end. Good battle. I know his legs will ache for at least a week for that effort but I know Douglas really enjoyed paying me back for my sneaky move on the KOM earlier in the day.

Tara can’t run! She is injured and after a little attempt soon realized it was smarter to just stop. She can ride though so off to the winery she went!

Some people skipped the Winery! Not me. Our support crew supplied the munchies and Nuedorf Winery supplied some yummy wines. Nice way to finish the day. Some people did roll the 25km back to our accom but I was happy to be done for the day. Great day.

We’re staying at the really nice place named Moncao resort here in Stoke which is on the outskirts of Nelson and just across from a historic pub called the Honest Lawyer.
A quick shower and I was straight over there.
Another fabulous dinner from our support crew and I was more than ready to call it a night.
Happy camper!
I haven’t sent the photos from today but hopefully we’ll get some up that take in the magnificence of Golden Bay, the views from Takaka Hill, the magic little beach where we had our Aquathon and our winery stop. I can’t imagine the photos could represent these experiences adequately but it will be nice to have them nonetheless.