BLOODY NEW ZEALAND! Tales from Auckland

You can't see the outer layer of my leg is missing along with my right butt Cheek scared up!!!

Three weeks ago I signed up for a 10k road race in Auckland, New Zealand, just excited at the chance to race in another country. I didn’t know about the course or the people that had previously raced it, but I knew that the winner had run 33:59 in 2010 so I had a chance at winning. As the day would unfold I would be able to add running up a volcano twice, running through rain and mud, and having a session with medical workers to my list of things done while in New Zealand.

                The day prior to the race I decided it would be best to run from my hostel, to the race site so that I knew exactly how to get there the morning of the race. Sun was actually shining, I had just awoken from a nap and I hit the road in route for “western springs park”. After making it about 2.5 miles the roof just opened up from above and the rain just came by the buckets. All in all I ended up running 7.6 miles in order to find this park and run back in the torrential downpour. The night prior to the race I would once again wake up at 4am and fail to fall back asleep. After my flight through the night directly to Auckland from perth, I managed to not even catch 1 minute of sleep and go right into the Auckland morning. I had been lacking sleep critically, as I have been laying down around 11pm and waking up between 3 and 4am every night. The night of the race was no exception, in fact I just decided to go downstairs and have a small breakfast before the udder fatigue just begin to set in.

                Arriving at the race most likely looking aged by 10 years I had a nice warm-up and the “Run Auckland” set up looked pretty legit surrounding the start/finish of the race. I tucked away my track suit behind some tents and made my way to the starting line realizing that I could not remember the last time I had actually put on deodorant because of all of this back and forth traveling haha. The gun blast off and people all fly out in front of me, but I take my time to aim in on the 2 front runners who have distanced themselves from the pack and pursue. We hit our 1^st kilometer in 3:12 which was all gradual uphill, just a bit too fast for me but I was able to tuck in fairly comfortable. We passed 2k in a slower 3:19 distancing ourselves from 4^th place by a good margin. I took the lead and began to push the pace just as we turned a corner to look at the wall that soon we would be running up. The course was on/around a dormant volcano so basically we had to run straight up the back side of this volcano twice for the 10k!!! After managing to get pretty heavily into oxygen debt the top 2 runners hit the 5k mark just in front of me while I was happily surprised to be a 16:53 with that climb.

                Now for the juicy part of the days racing! I had 2^nd place in my sights as the eventual winner just broke both of us. This time we had to run around all of the 5k runners who were released 15 minutes after our race, what a chore! These people blocked the sidewalks completely so it was a zig zag for literally 5k which slowed all of us down and drained any extra energy that we could have had. As I approached the climb once again, my spirit was broken from the fantasy of winning, I could hear some foot steps behind me, then I heard breathing. Breathing from a little boy or a girl, holy crap! I knew that there was a local woman who had been winning some of the races overall in some pretty fast times but I didn’t think it could be her, it was of course. She just flew up the volcano with her short choppy strides while I looked like a freak extending my legs a bit too long and eventually I began a nice walking pace.           Once I got to the top the woman was almost out of sight, I passed the 2^nd place guy who was bent over at the top of the hill and then heard someone quickly approaching. I found a heart somewhere inside and convinced myself to dig a little deeper and begin with some surges. I was making my way through the hundreds of 5k runners or walkers should I say. Jumping in the grass, sinking my feet into the wet muddy grass then back onto the sidewalk for a few brief steps before 2 more women completely blocked the sidewalk we were racing on. “Ok just 2k or so to go lets rock it man, don’t be a P^$$y, MAN UP!”. I am running downhill between all these people, I glance at my watch as the 9^th k clicks and I am going 4:41 mile pace at this point, woooo. Now to just plan my maneuver ahead between the 5 women half walking and running on this slippery wet surface. “I can make it between them before I hit the power pole, Oh Sh*t, I can’t make it”. So I take a sharp cut right as if I was Barry Sanders and then that’s when all hell broke loose for me.

                I am bracing myself for this mega fall down hill on this rocky pavement, BOOM SKIIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. I am sliding on my right side just ripping into my knee and then I basically collapse into two women from behind almost knocking them over. They are in a panic, screaming, “oh my god are you ok, oh no, oh no!!!”. The only thing I am thinking is, “this is going to hurt later but I am not going to lose my 3^rd place, get up Chris!”. I pop up the best that I can and yell to the concerned women, “I will sort it out later!” and continue my onward drive to the finish. The guy behind me of course passes me on this stretch while I am gathering myself again so I pop in behind him. We hit the last 600m and we are running on wooden planks that can carry at the most 2 people wide and from all of the rain, the volcano surface has turned into mud and washed down onto the planks. We are slipping and sliding, at the verge of a fall at any moment, trying to dice between other 5k runners. We both slip off of the little wooden deck into the swampy mud but catch ourselves for one last blast to the finish 100m away. I know I have a lot more left in the tank so I roll past him to the line and wrap up my 3^rd place.

                After the race I look down and see blood running down my leg and people begin asking if I am ok. The medics luckily were on hand and took me inside the ambulance to begin cleaning my wounds and wrapping them up. The outer skin layer of my anterior tib was pretty much removed completely and my knee has a few nice slices that will be some sweet war wounds to talk about in the future. After waiting around for 90 minutes for awards, they do not give anything out and I may point out that they provide no food at the finish, only one bottle of water! It was a long 3.5 mile walk back to my hostel with my leg all banged up and the on again off again showers. What an experience!!!! Up next is a hiking adventure over some snow capped mountains, hopefully I can stay on my feet!

2009 World Championship Recap

The 2009 World Championship was an amazing experience to say the least. I had to buckle down and train on the bike and by foot for the first time ever really. After qualifying for worlds I gathered up $ to buy a new Kestrel Talon to train and race on which was a big chunk of change for me. After the outcome at worlds I was initially very upset because of my training didn't show on race day due to other outside factors.

I had the most support I have ever had for a race by family and friends it was amazing! I heard my name so many times while running and bike through the infield of lowe's motor speedway it certainly helped me push harder each time. Unfortunately for the spectators it was raining almost the entire time so it was a bit miserable, but it wasn't anything that beer and grey goose couldn't change.

10 minutes before the start of my world championships race, it hit me and i freaked. I left my ankle chip in the transition area as well as my cycling shoes were IN MY CAR!!! I was there for 3hrs socializing and not focusing that I forgot all of this. The transition area was closed but I convinced the monitor to please let me grab my chip and then to throw my shoes near my bike. Thank the lord I remembered my shoes and I got to the start line w/4 minutes to spare.

At the line, people were talking but in other languages, it was pretty cool. I was on the 2nd/3rd row from the front and then the gun fired. I wanted to be near the front of the pack because i knew i had good fitness but also because my fans would be at about 1/2m into the race cheering. We took off and at about that 1/2 mile I was thinking this is WAY to fast then I heard on the intercom, "if these guys keep this pace they will be running faster than the pro's, this is suicidal", then I knew I needed to back off a bit ha-ha. 5:05 was my first mile according to Cody. After a mile I began to have some very bad breathing problems so I tried to get my composure back so that I could finish solid.

Aubrey was in front of me the entire time, cody caught up at about 2.5 miles and I gave it all I had to stay w/him through the spectator area and just after that I couldn't do much more. at 2.5m when cody said "hey man they will start coming back to us" I told him to upzip my back because i could not breath at all, hoping this would open up my breathing, WRONG. That team USA one piece was just way too tight for me. I haven't had breathing problems like that in years, it sucks that it happened the day of the biggest race of my life!



Once the 10k finished it was raining really hard and my shoes were water logged. I hit the transition and noticed cody was already gone. I grabbed my bike and hit the road, with a slow mount and a slow start because there was a sharp curve and I was afraid to bust it. The 1st 2 miles I rode very conservative because I saw 5 people actually wreck it was crazy, we were riding through areas that were flooding. At about 4 miles into the ride my left leg began to get tight then I tried to stretch on the bike and it LOCKED UP. I had never had this happen in my life, it hurt so bad, i didn't know what to do because i couldn't pedal. I was going about 21mph, then i was coasting at about 11mph pedaling w/one leg.

At this point, i knew my race was way out of the window, with the goal not to wreck. Eventually after a couple miles the muscle lock released and I could pedal fairly normal. The 2nd loop, I finally decided to let it rip. 2 guys passed me with Disc and I said "F--k It, no one else is going to pass me and I am going to reel these 2 guys in" I went for it and rolled them up while maintaining a high cadence weaving through people. Catching guys in my division was a new thing for me, as the goal is to just not get passed by as many people as possible is the goal usually. When we hit one of the final climbs I clicked through my gears into the small ring real quick and BAM...the chain was on the ground 1/2 way up a hill, dammit!

After stopping and watching everyone pass me who I had spent the last loop putting ground on, it pissed me off. What a freakin day! I finally got back to my transition area and i realized when i went to mount my bike, cody's bike was in my place. I had a lot of trouble slipping into my shoes but finally hit the trail w/a roctane. I began passing people in the transition and knew I had a chance to roll up a lot of people, but it didn't happen like tri's or duathlons usually do for me. Mostly because I ran 18:19 for 5k which was the SLOWEST I have ever ran to close out a race. My breathing problems and cramping kept fighting each other, it sucked. with about 3/4m left, I passed one USA guy and said "come on we are almost there man", he jumped on my shoes and stayed there and tried to pass me going onto the last finishing straight away. We took 2 sides of the straight away passing numerous people in the middle and I knew I COULD not get out kicked in front of my family, so I gave it one big push and got 1 second on him in the end.

The experience is something to take w/me, knowing that the next big race, I need to get away from everyone 30minutes before the race to focus. I thought I was going to get hypothermia from the weather but i rushed from the speedway as soon as I could after giving congrats to aubrey and cody. What a race both of those guys had, i was proud to be apart of their group and a usa teammate. G$ was certainly the highlight of the race for most people, as he painted himself blue and had USA across his chest. After the 10k portion of the run, he managed to disappear and wind up asleep in a garage somewhere, PRICELESS....



Special thanks to all of my friends and family who came out, it meant a lot to me, thank you all for cheering in the cold and rain!!!