Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Out surveying on the beaches again today. Took a break between run 2 and 3 and ran up to the top of Patahu - via Lucy's gully. doubly as brutal as on wednesday, but doubly as fun on the way down :)

Have had some interesting conversations with the public while on the job, but the definite winner managed to deny climate change, be sexist about our primeminister, and call me a waste of money, while being concerned we were making the streams too clean and the trout would have nothing to eat. I honestly don't know just how much, if any of what he said was tongue in cheek! I just smiled and nodded and made my escape.

C • You're patient! 6

Stopped at Mangamahoe. Turned left and explore the bridle tracks this week. Far preferable to the mtn bike tracks. Maybe not as fun, but far less risk of being run down by faster beings!
No trouble given by geese tonight. Saw one of their mates dead on SH3 this morning, so maybe they were in mourning. Can't help but wonder how the car that hit it fared...

evening cruise around Pukekura

Doing beach surveys today, so 3x through 7 beaches noting recreational usage. Each run of beaches took 3hrs, with about 1hr to kill in between before starting again. Not quite long enough to go for a run and get back to the start point, but managed strength in one of my breaks.

Explored Lucy's gully after finishing my last beach run. Could be a new favourite :) Absolutely brutal uphill for 20-25mins, but pays off with 15mins of sweet technical descent before bursting out into the most beautiful little redwood filled valley. Very much enjoyed.

From home. Found a delightful little valley stream reserve. Lots of cool shade, nice trails and nikau palms. But only about 1km of track. Then down the Huatoki walkway, which had a disappointing proportion of concrete path tbh. Over to Pukekura and wound my way back up the hill home.

My first naki local after work event. Meant to be a sprint down by the coast. Ha. First mistake was believing that and wearing singlet and shorts. #1-2 went swimmingly (not literally, but), then #3. oh #3. On a hilltop amongst the open dunes. I cut off the track in what I thought was the right place (very hard to read the track on the map though, being light brown on top of light yellow). Immediately was swimming in head-high dune grass, with nice pathces of blackberry hidden underneath. Suffice to say, I did not hit the control Eventually breaststroked out to the beach and relocated, only to not find the control again. By this point Cairie had caught me up, so I took the globally used approach of 'follow the local'. Which did the trick.
We then had a series of what could have been sprint controls around the parks and streets. But it quickly became apparent that the 4.5km course length was done as straight lines, not best route.
Then I came unstuck again at #11, which was a vegetation boundary, in an area where there was much much more vegetation than on the map. So I went off contours and circle location. My second mistake ;) After some minutes of bashing around, the mum, young boy and dog that I passed a couple of controls previous came casually jogging down the water's edge before pausing, doing a 180 and trotting off... aaaaah, control found!
The rest of the course was back in single-contour beloved open dunes. Got full bodily stuck in lupin, before wandering around to find #13. #14 I thought I spiked, but it was 50m from where I spiked it. #15...well, i didn't take a compass, thinking it was a sprint. So I ended up well off in no-man's land in the long grass. And #16, I decided straight through blackberry was a fantastic idea :) I needed the mum, boy and dog to show me where it was again - tucked underneath the Te Rewa Rewa bridge!

Good day all up! 43mins on my first local a/w sprint!

C • Local event :) 6

Up mt pouakai from mangorei road end. 5km of boardwalked motorway up to the hut, incl about 700m climb. Then 1.5km of nice normal single track with eroded steps, until I left the pouakai circuit track...then the track got interesting... steps washed out so that all that remained was the wooden edges, deep muddy gorges where the track once was haha. It was beautiful stuff and a big contrast to the motorway up to the hut.
Patches of cloud on the tops, and mt taranaki was playing hide and seek, but lovely all the same.
Didnt appreciate the run down from the hut to the car so much, required 110% concentration to judge where all the edges of the steps were given the way the wooden slats of the boardwalk hypnotized you.