We had a series of challenges to get things organized for all of the changes in the course, and then ‘technical difficulties’ .   At Aickens, we arrived with plenty of time so we organized ourselves and headed towards the transition area early.  We stayed until Ursula came though – knowing we had three hours probably for them to cross the mountains.  Heading back to the van, loaded up and then a dead battery – we forgot to unlpug the charging cell, forgot a console light.  People don’t carry jumper cables in their cars usually in NZ.  it took proabably 15 cars until someone had them – charged up and on the road we were in a huge line of very slow moving support vehicles.

Highway 73 has many one way bridges where traffic was being directed so it was very slow – we passed runners and they would pass us a few minutes later as we were stopped for a bridge probably 2km ahead.  We had hoped to stop in Arthurs pas to upload pictures – but Jack was still ahead of us so we had to keep on going to make it to the transition on time.

We have some great pictures, but when the fuse in the van blew, we could not use the computer upload them en route- so we could only update with text through the cell phone.  Then the cell phone also died and without a car charger we were unable to do anything.  we appologize that what we had hoped to be able to provide to keep you up to date was simply not possible, so you were wondering.. .what now.

Driving from the bike refueling transition to the paddle transition, we knew that we were late, a pit of your stomach feeling stressing us all – we assmbled the gear while driving and were off running from the parking area – we saw the MacDonalds support team going the other direction – thier cyclist had been just ahead of Jack at the last spot… but we still had 700m and a boat inspection between us  and wher we would meet Jack – we were being paged over the loudspeaker.  Shoot.

Well, as fast as we could – he was off – apparently loosing two minutes.  Ultimately, two minutes wouldn’t have meant first place  – but it might have put him closer to the top ten  instead of 13th.  He also might have had a flat tire, or a crash – it is impossible to know all of the might haves.

At the next transition we were running – unsure of how long it would take.  So we hurried up to wait – over an hour of stress – woudl jack hate us for missing him at that last stop – how could we make it up?

Well, now we know things for next time – Jack is talking about next time already – hoping he can do the complete course in a race,  if he can win the entry through Logs Rocks and Steel again we shall have to see.