It all starts tomorrow, 6 AM New Zealand time (so if you’re in Ontario, noon on Friday). The weather forecast is fantastic for a day that will involve:

3 km running (in the dark) from Kumara Beach on the Tasman Sea to our bikes
55 km cycling up a peaceful river valley as the sun rises
33 km running over goat pass, featuring 24 river crossings and 700+ metres of climbing
15 km cycling to our kayaks
67 km kayaking through braided river channels, a steep-walled gorge, and several 90 degree bluff corners
70 km cycling in to the finish line at Sumner Beach on the Pacific Ocean!

I’m here with my friend Barb Campbell, and our crew: Nelvia (my sister) Chris (my brother-in-law) Richard (Barb’s husband) and Andrew (a big-hearted kiwi).

You can follow our progress throughout the day at:

www.facebook.com/vandorpracing

www.coasttocoast.co.nz

and barb will have a spot transponder to relay her position every 10 minutes:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=03EEh29tdLhuhXnflR3yVggXOniKTvnUa

Paddling Colpoy

When the mud settled after the GUATS Logs Rocks and Steel race last September, Jack Van Dorp and Barb Campbell were the winners on the Championship course. Both accepted the grand prize of a free entry to Speight’s Coast to Coast in New Zealand, the World Multisport Championship.

Now in its 29^th year, Coast to Coast is one of the oldest multisport races on the planet.  Before sunrise on February 12, two hundred racers will line up on the beach at Kumara on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Over the next 12 to 18 hours, they will run, bike and paddle 243 kilometres to Sumner Beach, a suburb of Christchurch on New Zealand’s east coast.

Training for a summer event during the Canadian winter can be a challenge. Van Dorp, who placed 12^th at the 2010 Coast to Coast, has learned some tricks over the past two winters. He runs along the rugged Bruce Peninsula shoreline to prepare for running in rocky riverbeds and other rough terrain in New Zealand. The race goes over the Alps, so Van Dorp makes strength work a priority. “I do a lot of core work and lunges to increase my power for climbing over rocks.” He converted his unheated garage into a training space where he rides his bike on rollers or a trainer. A strong Nordic skier, he skate skis regularly to build general fitness.

To train and raise funds for last year’s Coast to Coast, Van Dorp did a race simulation at Heritage Place Mall in Owen Sound. Sears and the Sportmakers Gym where he trains provided him with a treadmill, stationary bike and rowing machine, and he went the full race distance as passersby watched and friends dropped by to train beside him.

While the running in Coast to Coast is rugged and often off-trail, the three cycling legs of the race take place on 140 kilometres of paved roads. A keen trail rider, Campbell did not own a road bike when she won the race entry. “My race preparation began with some hurried shopping and a bunch of late season rides to get used to the different gears, brakes and handling of a road bike.”

Campbell and her husband Richard Ehrlich have dubbed their home gym the Adventure Basement. Although she prefers snowshoeing and Nordic skiing in winter, this year she has spent some time indoors doing strength training and working out on the kayak erg, bike trainer and – for intervals only – the treadmill. She does her other runs outdoors in snowshoes or spiked shoes.

Both Van Dorp and Campbell have travelled outside Ontario to train. On separate trips to Florida, they biked, ran and paddled while snow fell back home. In December, Van Dorp raced on Team GUATS Adventure in the six-day Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge.

It hasn’t all been palm trees though! In January, Campbell met a friend in Vancouver for whitewater kayak coaching to prepare for the 67 kilometres of river paddling in Coast to Coast. Back home, a few days after Christmas, Van Dorp and Campbell post-holed through the snow to launch their kayaks for a few hours on Georgian Bay near Van Dorp’s home town of Wiarton.

With Coast to Coast less than three weeks away, their final training phase will take place in New Zealand. Amongst other activities, Van Dorp and Campbell will do the mountain run over Goat Pass and take a guided kayak trip down the Waimakariri River.

See www.coasttocoast.co.nz for more information and live coverage of the race. You can follow the Canadian racers through the afternoon and evening of February 11 (in North America) by following “vandorpracing” on Facebook and Twitter.

Latest reports are that the river is running comfortably higher than last year (when it was quite low during our training sessions), but we have to hope that the current rainfall levels which are wreaking havoc in parts of the country and australia won’t be a factor when it comes to the race time (and that they stop mucking things up for the locals, too).

our goal is to provide coverage throughout the run-up and during the event, wherever possible, via this website and text messages to facebook and twitter (which show up on the right). sportzhub.com will also be covering the race, feeding information through to www.coasttocoast.co.nz.

We race on February 12th, but if you’re in North America it’ll be the 11th. the way the time change works, the race will start around noon if you’re in the eastern time zone, and with an estimated 12 hour time to complete it, should be wrapping up a little before midnight. more to come!

But its already been 6 weeks, and we are gearing up to head to New Zealand for Coast to Coast in just a week.

We arrived in late on December 8th after two mostly uneventful flights. I met Jen in London; Bob and Bill flew in via Frankfurt. After the initial excitement of the swankiest  hotel I’ve ever stayed in, I slept very well.

The next day was devoted to briefings, packing, gear checks, and topping up our food supplies. An amazing buffet dinner and opening ceremony occupied the early evening, then it was bedtime.

Race day 1 started pretty early, but we had our gear together and, after a solid breakfast (same wide-ranging menu three days in a row helped us get ‘comfortable’ with the local food) we headed downtown to the beach where 100 inflatable canoes were lined up. after an hour of getting the boats pumped, gear stowed, and ourselves warmed up we were off. our canoe was in the middle so we didn’t have far to run to get to it, which put us ahead of the pack through the first paddle. Then it was a run through the grounds of an opulent palace (or hotel?), swim, run back to the boats, paddle (our canoe was leaking some air so getting a bit slower over the course), run, and paddle back to finish. about 10 minutes from the end i broke the blade off a paddle, but thankfully team orion adventure (from new zealand) gave us a spare and we finished in good time.

next up was a bus transfer, an hour to get our loaner bikes fitted and tweaked (we were close, but not quite ready) and a 45-50 minute bike ride from Al Ain towards Jebel Haffeet mountain. Sliding seatposts and malfunctioning gears put us near the back off the start, but we worked hard and passed about half the teams again. Still on the clock we transitioned to run / mountaineer our way through a canyon and then over and down a mountain pass, where bob and bill rappelled and jen and i hiked down. reunited, we had a quick run to end the stage and the day.

Day 2 started at 6.30 am with a fast run over rough flats, through another short but steep mountain pass, and back to the bikes. from there it was back to the road and then up a 13 k climb (average grade ~ 8%) that twisted its way up the mountainside. at the top we were starting to feel a bit cooked, but switched again to mountaineering gear to scramble for a couple of hours hitting checkpoints on the upper stretches of the  mountain before clipping in and out on a kilometer plus ‘via ferrata’ and rappel descent back to the desert ‘floor’. we headed west about a kilometre, then headed back up a different pass, again with lots of clipping in and out. at the top,  feeling very parched and out of water, we made our way through the last few checkpoints and in to the finish. my shoes were pretty shredded. no problem sleeping on the bus to our next camp.

the camps, i should say, were sort of surreal. trucks bearing the insignia of the army officers club and hotel bore our meals, which were good and plentiful. trailers provided showers and  washroom facilities, with running water provided by water tanker trucks. a ring of tents housed various administrative functions (first aid, timing, food). in the centre, a large campfire burned wood from somewhere (not a lot of trees around!) and large woven tents with carpets for floors and a variety of cushions provided a place to relax and eat. Racers’ tents scattered across the landscape, reflecting the tradeoff between privacy / quiet and how far a team was willing to haul their gear.

Day 3 started with breakfast at 2.30 am, and a race start time of 04.00. first up was a 95 km bike ride on asphalt then sand (which had been watered) then dryer sand, then finally a bumpy  hard surface that was at least rideable, if uncomfortable. it was hard making progress, though leading teams reported success with running tubeless tires at very low pressure – not an option for us on bikes borrowed from the organization (but we were thankful to not have to haul more kit halfway around the world). At the end of that we had a half-hour to strip our bikes down of all the gear we had added / changed, then set off into the desert for a 100+ km trek. it was really hot, and in the middle of the day,  so we took the first three hours of our required 8 hours ‘stop time’ at the third checkpoint. we headed off again with the temperature starting to drop, but the sun was also descending. bill was having trouble managing hydration, and eventually threw up just before dark. not a good situation! we pressed on to the next checkpoint, but stopped there for the rest of our time to allow him to recover. he made a good recovery, and we were off again around 1 AM, struggling a bit to find an efficient route through the dunes and knowing that, with all of our mandatory ‘stop time’ gone we had to keep going to hold our position. the sun came up, things got hot, and we passed teams that had taken their rest later. we missed the time cutoff for an optional checkpoint that would have let us do an extra 10-15 km of trekking by 30 minutes, and instead took a 6 hour time penalty. one other team ahead of us was in the same situation, and we worked hard to keep them from getting too far ahead. at the end of the stage, they had moved up the rankings and were sitting in 9th, just 6 minutes behind us.

The winds came up just before dawn on day 5, and were strong enough to force the organizers to cancel the day’s paddling stage. we spent the day lounging, eating, and recovering in our tents and in town at Mirfa city, and were ready for an early morning departure back to abu dhabi on day 6 for a final (shortened) paddle stage. I was disappointed not to have the opportunity to recover some of our losses over a long paddle stage, but my disappointment was quickly erased when I realized that the boat we had been allocated had a major leak that required dumping it out every 15 minutes. an organizer radioed ahead for us and we got a new boat after 1 lap / 11 km / 80 minutes. we then had to get the rudder / pedals recalibrated, and from then on it was hard work to recover time lost to the polish team that was right behind us in the overall standings. bob and bill’s kayak had a leaky bulkhead, which was slightly less severe but more difficult to tip out.  by the end, however, we had managed to whittle the pole’s lead to one minute, which kept us ahead overall. whew! exhausted, we headed back to the hotel for yet another feast, awards, and well-earned sleep.

after that, we headed to dubai for a few days, checking out various malls (mostly for their attractions, like an indoor ski hill, fountains, and ‘themes’, beaches, a 60th story bar, but also enjoyed the “old” dubai with its traditional textile, spice, and gold markets, water taxis, and cheap, tasty food. then home again to the cold!

Bob Miller’s crazy race, the Guats Logs Rocks and Steel Multisport Adventure went off in the rain, mist, and wind on Saturday. Hosted at the Frost Centre on Highway 35, about 50 solo and team competitors lined up for the ‘Championship Course’ race and 150 (including my sister!) for the shorter ‘Frost’ course.

Woke up to intermittent rain and reasonably strong Southwest winds (enough to buffet the flames on the stove we used to make morning coffee). Mom looked after breakfast, Jody got my hydration systems ready while I arrayed the rest of my gear.

The race started at 08.00 with about 200m of double track then into a rooty/stony single-track. I knew I had to press my advantage on this terrain early, so took off quickly and held HR at around 180 for the first 15-20 min. Bill Wells was close with me for the first long time, and I could still see him on the switchback climb away from the lake about 4km in. GPS finally picked up a signal after 40 minutes, which came in handy for the road section as I was motivated to keep the pace high. This road section ended abruptly about 10k into the race, when the course switched to a “trail” that looks to have been last maintained about 10 years ago. But for the pink ribbons marking the course, it would have been tough to identify, but it was fun crashing through the wet branches. Eventually back on to good trail, it wasn’t long before a stream crossing and a short stretch of road that brought me to the boat transition. Run Time: est 1h 20.

With 7 portages, the Paddle section involved a lot of pond-hopping.  Lots of other lakes and portages head off the main race route, and after some anxiety during the 2009 race,  I was glad that I took the time to summarize and memorize the paddle course maps.  An extra beaver dam, barely submerged logs, and lily pads made me glad to have a flip-up rudder on my decade-old south african marathon K1 (the low weight was great for portaging).  I’d hooked my hydration bag under the seat bolt so it wouldn’t fall out if I tipped or drained the boat at a portage, but that meant it was a bit loose so I had to tighten it up at one portage. Also, the boat’s interior is a bit tight for running shoes, and pointing my toes to control the rudder led to cramping early on, but a salt pill helped with that. In the third last lake, poor route choice meant I ran aground on a floating mud mat, and I promptly fell out while trying to pull across it…then fell through the mat, managed to get back up and spread my weight enough to be able to get back in the boat. Took on some water, but thankfully the next portage was only 100m away. The last 2 k was the only really exposed section of the course, and had some waves up t0 15″, but not unmanageable.  It was fun catch some Frost Course paddlers (who started 2 hours later with a 4k paddle). I tried to keep the  boat around 11 km/h on the water. Split: approx 1:25

Paddle-to-Bike Transition setup wasn’t quite as efficient as I hoped, with camelback straps crooked, the waist-belt still done up, and my salt pill not wanting to leave the baggie i put it in, then falling onto the ground. My friend Andrew was volunteering and I could hear his catcalls… lets  go VanDorp!

The bike course was pretty muddy and lots of Frost athletes were already on it, making it fun and sometimes challenging to maintain a steady line through the slop. I caught sister Jody a few km into the course. After 8 km or so our course diverged from the Frost Course and I was on my own. A bit of chain suck in the lowest gears kept me in the middle ring, and every time my foot hit the ground I worried that someone would overtake me. The brambles were not so bad as I had remembered (though my legs are pretty scraped up).  The last 15km on gravel road were faster, but large puddles meant fine-grained clay between the pads and discs, and the wet road made for  slower going than 2009. A photographer I passed said something like “you’ll hold the lead” but I didn’t want to trust him. finally hit the hard asphalt road, dropped my elbows onto the bars, and gunned for home in Time trial position, crossing the line in 5 h 30 min – 2.5 min slower than 2009, but on a different course and in wet conditions.

Compared to 2009, the run was perhaps less technical (save for the bushwacking section), but the portages slowed down the paddle.  The MTB was definitely muddier, but better hydration / salt management and memory for what it was like helped keep me going.

Barb Campbell had an amazing race, coming off the paddle in 10th overall and going on to win the female championship race.

Sister Jody finished second female in the Frost Course, and fellow Grey-Brucer Scott Thomson won the Frost Course race.

Guats threw in $1000 to help defray travel expenses, work has given me clearance, so its time to gear up for NZ! Updated race calendar to follow soon.

Peter and I drove to Deerhurst Friday night, arriving around 10 pm and opting for the less ostentatious back-of-the-van-in-the-parking-lot accomodations. Lots of signs of renovations around in advance of next months G8 Summit – including some dumpsters and a variety of shipping trailers here and there. We wanted to get a good sleep though, because the race was anticipated to take 6-8 hours.

We tuned up our bikes using the van light, found a quiet spot at the end of the parking lot, and bunked down for the night. It was a bit cozy with the two of us squeezed between our bikes, but we got by fairly comfortably. Andrew, our teammate, stayed over in Orillia before heading up Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we were up and about around 7, as we had to check in, get our bikes to a transition area on the west end of huntsville, sort our gear into bags for the transition areas, collect our maps, and plot our route over the race course, by 10 AM.

The race started with a quick run through the resort down to the lake where we had to grab a canoe. we carried our kayak paddles along, and pieces of foam seats so we would be able to have a seat for our middle paddler (Peter) and, hopefully, some foot supports. we found a fiberglass boat, preferable to plastic but not quite as nice as kevlar, and were off.

Two kayaks and a canoe got out ahead of us, but we caught the other canoe fairly quickly. As we reached the open water of the lake we heard some thunder in the distance and began to wonder whether to go ashore and wait it out. Based on our position, however, we determined that it would be nearly the same difference to head to shore or press onward, so we pressed on.

Another boat got onto our wash and was close in behind us, and a third boat, team adrenaline rush, was catching up on the right.

At the transition pete ran up to check us in while andrew and I stowed the boat and found the gear bag. we had started in our mountain bike shoes so were able to get out of there fast — just behind the lead solo racer. we passed him when we got off the roads and onto the trails, and then rode a combination of asphalt, gravel, and bush roads further and further into the woods. eventually the trail petered out and we had to choose between a clearer trail running not quite where we wanted to go (and not on our map) and bushwacking north for a short bit to where we were more sure of a trail. we chose to bushwack, and came thoruhg in good time. Adrenaline Rush was just behind us coming into the next transition, a hunting camp where we had to drop our bikes and proceed on foot to get 3 checkpoints in the woods. We brought shoes along (I had tucked my trail racing flats into my jersey pockets) so we did a quick shoe change, had a drink, and headed off. we followed beaver-dammed watercourses to the first and second CP, then headed south until we found a trail that brought us back past the hunt camp en route to the third CP. for that one we opted for precision over speed, and took a straight bearing through the woods, bearing slightly right to be safe and aiming for a large water feature. we came out at the water feature a little bit right of the CP, and headed back in to get it. by this point a lot of teams were in the CP area, some choosing this CP first, others opting for the order that we chose, so there were lots of people around. a straight shot north back to the trail, along it to our bikes, and we were off again.

the second last stage was a steep bush road, some gravel roads, and then asphalt and a steep descent towards deerhurst. we apparently arrived about an hour ahead of schedule, changed shoes again, and started our final  stage – a short trek that brought us along some of the deerhurst trails using a somewhat less precise map. flags had also been set for the high school adventure challenge scheduled for sunday, so we found the first CP and then another nearby, either of which could have been the assigned CP. the next CP was at a trail junction, and we found it without difficulty, turned on the jets, and headed for the finish, coming in at just under 4.5 hours.

And that was that!

we cleaned our bikes and ourselves, then settled in to enjoy the party and see the others come in!