The big Race

Following Edward Martin on his coast to coast race

My two young girls and I had the pleasure of supporting number 100 in last month’s Coast to Coast one day race. It was such an epic day that I have decided to answer the call for an article to spell out the experience in more detail for our local community. I hope I can provide a glimpse to what was a truly eye opening day, a once in a lifetime event, which we are bound to repeat (and hopefully recruit some of you readers along the way).

The day was of epic proportion, starting at 4am with athlete drop off and finishing at 10:30pm when our heads finally hit the pillow completely and utterly depleted, all of us, not just our contestant. We triumphed through all weather New Zealand could throw at us, particularly when crossing an entire mountain range on foot. 

We mingled with multiple nationalities and crews of varying levels of style and pace, witnessing amazing engineered race transition procedures: foods aka “fuels” in the form of bars, protein balls, nutella bananas to packets of energy “goo”.  All focused forms of meeting competitor needs by teams of supporters carrying spreadsheet checklists, clearly rehearsed and defined roles and responsibility charters. 

An eye opening level of coordination and detail made me feel slightly out of my depth in my flip flops chasing my five year old picking flowers and yelling after my seven year old constantly wanting to “explore” the mountain rather than help mommy shade Daddy’s road bike tires.

Fine tuned, carefully perfected streamlining was everywhere – everything from SPD shoes pre-attached to bikes, liquid caffeine nozzle packets, Camelpak water tubes taped to bodies, kayaks, bikes, inches away from the competitor’s mouths, carpet “changing squares” carefully laid out on the grass for an athlete to comfortably stand for 20 seconds before subjecting their feet and limbs to another 50 km segment of repetitive pounding.

One particular highlight was to see Clyde, a relaxed and popular middle aged local, the final contestant at every cut off, cross the finish line in true style, at his own pace. Clyde sat down in a chair to a “meal” of creamed rice or canned tuna at every transition, he gracefully posed for photos and high fived his large support crew each time he passed through one stage to the next. A true Coast to Coast icon that intrinsically knew how to make his cutoff times while appearing cool and relaxed. You could tell he knew the course like the back of his hand.

Elite athletes from Australia, South Africa, USA, Italy, UK and Japan, men and women training for multiple hour endurance events, Iron Man this, Red Bull challenge that, coming from and going to events throughout New Zealand also competed in the longest day, with impressive finishing times just over 11 hours for men, 13 hours for women. 

I was quite proud of Martinborough’s showing on the day, both my husband and our other local gem Sarah Hadlow competed (Sarah in the two day event).

Supporting a race of such scale has taken years of evolvement and fine tuning among the organizers to make this race one of the iconic events of the South Island.  More than 700 athletes joined the event this year, 140 of them competing in the one day.  Cars honked at every intersection in the final 20 kms through the city, cheering on racers to the finish at New Brighton Beach. It was hard to not be impressed and slightly emotional about the camaraderie being offered up by perfect strangers everywhere we went.  Edward was met with all you can eat venison burgers and fireworks at the finish line – what a beautiful sight.

The peak of our South Island experience was waking up in a zombie dream like state the next morning and seeing a father wearing his Coast to Coast shirt, loading up the kayaks, bikes and all the transition gear into the truck followed by his two tall athletic 20 something year old daughters, each having just competed in the race, following in their father’s footsteps.  What a tradition to braid into a family!  We were hooked from that moment forward.

I ran straight to the Karapoti Classic family bike race with open arms the very next weekend – proudly photographing every step of Capella and Marea’s event, accepting their medals and awards for placing 1st and 3rd in their age groups. There is something to be said for testing your limits, pushing the envelope of endurance and spending some time alone with nature. I’ll be proud to watch this new found family tradition unfold in the years to come.

Next time you see your local arborist dangling on a rope high above in a tree, please pass on a word of congratulations for his achievements as number 100 finisher of the “longest day” race.

Signing off as one proud wife.
Mrs Martin (junior)