Winter Challenge Take III - Part I

Sunday, 21 August 2011

So anyone who follows my training diary will know I've been training myself up to do the paddle leg for Jon in the Winter Challenge.  Last year he did the full event (run, mtn bike, road bike, paddle) all by himself and was doing pretty well in his class until he got into our borrowed slightly dodgy kayak, with next to no practise and quickly paddled himself out of contention for a podium finish.   He did that 11k paddle leg in 88 minutes. Since the start of this year I've been working my way up through a succession of boats and now I have my very own beautiful 6 metre 11kg ocean ski.  I've also been training 3 or four times a week for the last few months except for the few weeks after my ankle operation.  And last week I raced the course in 60 minutes and 9 seconds so I was pretty happy I was going have a positive effect on Jon's total time now that we were a team.  Oh and also Jon's been training like a demon and now the strongest and fittest he's been since '96.

So you'd have to say the stage was set for a good day - and it started out great with Jon doing a strong 10km run leg (except for the bit where he lost about 4 minutes taking a few wrong turns - oops).  Then he changed into his cycling gear and headed out for another strong MTB leg through the mud and up up up a hill.  Then back for the change to the road bike (by this time he was probably a bit envious of the other two person teams where the other person actually did more than just stand around for the first three legs). Anyway - he came back strongly and helped me hobble into the water and gave me a push start. I was hoping to finish in around 65 minutes.....

to be continued...