Gold Rush

Well after 2 and half months in New Zealand — with lots of fun training 🙂 and lots of money spent 🙁 — I finally won a race. This was one of the most fun multisport races I’ve ever done — a 3 day stage race of about 6 hrs each day through the spectacular scenery of Central Otago, on the South Island. The weather was a huge factor with wind-blown ridges, tough head winds, and hot sun. For those of you thinking of traveling here to do the Coast to Coast, I’d recommend this one instead — it’s more fun 🙂

A full race report will come, but here come a few pics and links…

Angus Watson from Christchurch, who beat me the week before at the Mototapu race, came third. This 21-year old student is one to watch in NZ multisport … Here I am trying to chase him down on the rail trail run …

Here I am at the start of Day 3 where the group of individual (i.e., non-team) racers were taking it really slow … we all had tired legs !

Even though I had a decent lead going in to Day 3, I pushed as hard as I could — racing conservative seemed too risky for me. It proved to be a good strategy because Brazilian Flavio Vianna was only a few minutes behind me at the finish line of Day 3 !