Karapoti

With rain in Wellington all day and night Friday plus some more Saturday morning, the Karapoti course was a mud pit. I set out to achieve a time of less than 5 hours.
The race begins with a quick dash across the river, which was freezing cold and waist deep due to the rain. I’m glad I didn’t pack my phone so I could take some pictures during the race, the start would have killed it.
The pace of the first 10km was fast, that changed as soon as the first hill climb was encountered. The Karapoti features four hills, with the mud the only way to get up them was by walking a lot. The walking up the hills cost a lot of time and saw me fall towards the back of the field. My bike shoes really aren’t made for walking, my shoes kept sliding and my lower leg muscles were starting to cramp up. Perhaps training for this event shouldn’t so much be about riding but about pushing your bike uphill

I tried to make up some time on the downhill, but when I got to the rock garden there was a report of two broken arms so everyone in front was walking. It made it too hard to pick the right lines and maintain speed so I joined the queue.

The rock garden lead to my least favourite part of the race the devils staircase, this was the hike a bike from hell. I would love to watch how the pros get up this section, maybe they have to walk it like the rest of us.

After the devils staircase the third climb is almost complete and so is half the race. The 4km downhill from after this climb was great fun, it ended too soon though and it was back to climbing again.

On the final downhill section I was pushing too hard around a clay corner and had my front tyre slide out, collected a few cuts to my right leg and arm and also a big bruise on my arm. The stack made he take the rest of the downhill a bit slower.

Now almost at the finish line you have to cross the river again, in the five hours that I had been riding the river had risen to chest height. I slipped while crossing and only just managed to grab the back wheel of my bike to stop it from being taken down the river by the current. I think it was crazy of the organisers to have people still crossing the river before the finish, the bridge would have been much safer.

Official finish time is listed as 05:06:31, placing me at position 746 out of 865 finishers.