NZ - Day 11 - Hawkes Bay to Hamilton

The last day of the Sprint the Bay competition started with a lot of packing up. In a house full of knick knacks it's hard to tell if you've left something (or someone) behind.   But we managed to get everything loaded into the van by 8 so we were up at the event centre on Te Mata Peak by 8.15. All my start times have been very early, which has been good as it's meant I've mostly been able to get photos of everyone else.

Te Mata Peak features the map called Sleeping Giant - which is the shape of the ridge when seen from a distance - it's a pretty good resemblance actually!  

The final hill climb leg on the course that counted was the finish chute which wound it's way up the hill on a concrete path. The organisers gave us chalk to write messages of support on the ground like in the Tour De France.  Most of the messages were positive like 'Go VIC' or 'Keep Going!' but I did notice that a few were vaguely threatening such as 'Emma - You'd better still be running!' 

While we were there we also got lunch.

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Zali's crash (see later) cost her some time but otherwise we all had good runs although Julia sacrificed some time to make sure of an overall series victory in the hill climb.  Jett and Riley finished within seconds of each other - they've both had ups and downs through the series but also some really good battles between themselves! At 14 they are both the youngest competitors in their class which goes up to 18year olds so they've done really well. Julia and Zali have had some results to show that they can mix it with the faster runners in their class too.  

Aside from the heat, today was a day of injuries. In the morning Riley fell and smashed his hip against some wood and he had to walk the rest of the course. He's got some good bruises from that.  In the afternoon Zali failed to clear a lowish chain fence (which even I managed to jump over), and she crashed onto the gravel, scoring lots of grazes and a few bruises. And in the most ridiculous injury of all, during the afternoon race Jett went to wipe some sweat off the bridge of his nose but he forgot that his thumb compass was attached to his hand. The pointy part of his compass went right up his nose and he instantly gave himself a bleeding nose. I saw him run into the finish chute with a bloody face and I though that he'd hit a pole, or a person, or maybe even a car on his run around the village of Havelock North. The truth was far more hilarious!

We still had a 4 hour drive to get back to Hamilton for the night, so as soon as the presentations were over we headed off, stopping in lovely Taupo for dominoes pizza on the way. We arrived in our dodgy motel at about 9pm which wasn't too bad.