Around the Bays

Today it was "Wellington Around the bays" day.....

7km run along the bays together with lots and lots of other Wellingtonians, +12000 to be exact!
I got up at 07:00 so I could have myself a good breakfast and some coffee before the run and still have time enough to get to the start line in time to get a good spot with the 09:20 runners.
As a good Dutch man I got there way early.... All our Wellingtonians are a lot more flexible with these times and actually show up mere minutes before the start :)
09:20 the runners left the start lines and damn it was a blast to take off with the runner bunch!! First time ever for me to run something like this with so many others... interesting to say the least :)
I did very well for the first 2km and then my legs started to feel like bags of sand.. slowly but surely I was being taken over by whole hoards of people and I got the feeling that just about everyone that participated had passed me...
Kept on running and the closer we got to the finish the more people I started passing, even finding people stopping and walking instead of running. I really tried to make it my mission to keep people running and encourage them to the finish. It is amazing what a good feeling it is if you can motivate someone to not give up ... especially crossing the line and finding these people coming up to thank you hehehe :)
Spent another while running up and down the last 500 meters of the track enouraging more and more people that were SO close.... I had a great time.

Then it was time to run back.... :) Did that too but took my time as my legs now truly felt like....lumps of concrete.


Lets see what the newspaper says about my time tomorrow :)
Alright..... this is rather embarrassing..... 451st (30 minutes 12 seconds to do 7km... not Really bad but not good either) ha ha ha
Goal for next year... Finish in the top 100!

Its been a while, about time I tell you about Tora!

Nelson and I decided to go to Tora last weekend.
It was a quiet weekend and neither of us had any plans so we decided to fill up the van with some gear, hook the bikes on the back and head out there.
Let me give you an idea about where Tora is;
Looks far but it is only about 2 hrs driving from Wellington so very well doable.
To get there we had to cross the Remutaka mountains and drive right through Martinburough, just that part of the trip is already well worth the effort. And the good thing about this is that you can do it for a day trip too.
Once we got to Tora we drove all along the coastal road from North East to South West in the van to scan the coast and to find ourselves a good camp spot.
If you have read parts of this blog or the 360dg north blog you will probably start to get a little tired of me saying how gorgeous everything is and I am sorry but.... It SO IS!
After a while driving we found a spot for the Van and we set up camp just in time for late lunch.
We had some lunch (freshly baked buns, brie, tomato, avocado, chili and some salt) and got changed to jump on our bikes.
Since we were unsure of the actual tracks in the area we had to go and drive around to see what we could find, e already seen most on road stuff while driving the van and it did not look like there was much to ride except for a lot of private lands.
We drove North East and found the end of the road with a farm where they were not so keen on trespassers so we decided to turn around (I MUST be getting old :) )
We drove a few km and found a mountain road going up into the spreekwoorldelijke mountains and we decided to try it out.
We peddled long and hard to only end up .... at the end of the road with no where else to go, but it was an awesome workout :)
We enjoyed the ever so quick downhill and continued our journey South West only to find that the fences we found closed on our trip along the coast in the Van were now opened.

Wicked!

We seemed to be in luck because fence after fence was either opened or did not have any signs saying "STAY OUT" so we kept on going.
The landscape just got better and better with fewer signs of human life with every km we crossed.... it was time had stood still at some places and the surroundings were simply stunning!
Before long we were biking right through hordes of seals.... HOW WEIRD!!!
It is 23:30 and time for me to catch some sleep, tomorrow I am running "Round the bays" at 09:20 with some 11000 other people so have to try be at least a little fresh :)

Alright, Sunday just an hour and a bit before the run starts, back to the story at hand.

After we had finished this ride and got back to the Van we jumped off our bikes right into the ocean for a well deserved cooldown/cleanup and we started preparing for Dinner.
When you do rides like this it is really important that you eat well and hydrate constantly, which is something I most willingly oblige to :)

Because of our spot on the rocks and surrounded by water we could make a camp fire without causing any havoc and so we did.... Out door life, SO nice!As you can see, I am busy hydrating :)
Once we sorted our meal we had some more beers around the campfire and retreated to get some sleep as we were planning on checking out the area to see if we could find some tougher mountain bike trails.
We got up nice and early and had ourselves a perfect breakfast out in the open. We packed up the car and started driving towards a point we passed on our way up to Tora that said "4w drive track" which sounded exactly like what we were after.........
Once we got to the track we were greeted by the Lady of the land who looked somewhat baffled that we actually wanted to do the 12km track on a mountainbike :)
Normally it was 40$ per 4w drive and since we were with 2x2wheel we had to pay 20 each... fair enough. Obviously she did not have a money machine and we didn't think about bringing too much cashh so after searching through our gear she accepted our 15$ total as a fee for the both of us he he he :) SO nice of her!!

The ride itself was hellish tough and we had to walk a good few km's but the end result was well worth it. We actually ended up on a ridge that looked out over the very coast that we crossed the day before..... Well done men! :)
Driving back to the car was quite a mission since it was bloody warm and humid but we made it in one piece.
We found a river and had ourselves a nice "bath" SOoooo nice to cool down and refresh.... :)
Had a quick lunch next to the river in the shade and drove back to welly.....

Another wicked weekend!