Day 12 and Day 13

Day 12 – Christchurch to Geraldine – 153km

The wet day!!

Well.....what can I say, I knew I would have one at some point and here it was on day 12 on one of the shortest rides of the Tour, it was a cold, wet, windy day combined with some of the flattest and straightest roads in the world...well perhaps in NZ at any rate....my lowest point mentally! It was absolutely freezing and was a bit of a wake-up call that Mrs NZ wouldn’t let this pack of athletes across her contours unscathed (hhmmm....good bit of prose that! Will try and work that one into a report at work at some point!)....There were incidents galore throughout the day, including a few mechanicals with a couple of the guys ripping spokes out through the rim, and in Molina’s case, taking out some of the rim with the spoke...clearly still producing power in extra-ordinary quantities!!
There was also a crash...and in a very similar way to the ones that happen during the Tour de France, they all tend to happen on the straightest and less entertaining, almost transition stages, the winds were a little blustery, cold, accumulated fatigue and a few trucks going past and a couple of the guys touched wheels and down they went. Fortunately the support crew were immediately on-hand and with some expert taping/bandaging/magic sponge, the guys were back on the road, tapping out km’s within ten mins.
As for me, the cold weather got to the legs a little, and made it much harder mentally to turn them over, fortunately at the lunch stop, a change of clothing, and the prospect of only 50km to go, cheered me up a treat. I happily admit that I did glance lovingly at the “tail end Charlie” or “broom wagon” a couple of times with misty eyes, and the thought of the heater turned to max. It’s those little moments, where the odds are seemingly stacked against you completing the goal...where it would it would be all too easy to take step off the bike and into the wagon! But then, if anything’s worth there’s going to be hard, being mentally prepared to have those moments are key in overcoming them I think and breaking everything up into manageable chunks helps loads...

At the end of the day....this is Epic Camp not easy camp!

Day 13 – Geraldine to Waianakarua – 151km

Warm, Sunny (at times) and no wind – its all aboard the DC and Tara Train!!
Whoa....what a difference a day makes, I woke up this morning and it could almost have been a different planet compared to yesterday (day 12). The legs had recovered well and apart from a slightly stuffy nose, all was well. The day was neatly split into 3 parts with the aid station at 50km, lunch at 100km and the hotel at 151km. The first 100km was ridden out in under 2hr 45mins and following lunch, the next 50km was ridden at a more leisurely 33-34kph (felt leisurely at any rate).
I’ve had a few questions on how much are I eating etc etc.... so here goes...
A typical stage see’s me burning off about 6500-7000cals ( a few cheeseburgers then!), this is replaced with roughly the following;

Breakfast:

3 slices of toast with Nutella, honey or Jam, couple of slices of watermelon, kiwi fruit, handful of strawberries and a banana. 1 small plate of scrambled eggs (Super-Dave makes the best scramble!! – that’s got to be worth an extra point surely!)
2 cups of juice, 2 cups of coffee (provided by coffees of Hawaii!)

On the bike

I’ll probably run through about 6 bottles of energy drink (more if its hot), 4 high5 sports bars, handful of nuts, couple of gels towards the end of the ride.

Lunch

Normally a wrap with a large filling of ham/cheese/carrot/salty crisps and BBQ sauce – doesn’t sound particularly tasty, but amazing whats does taste good after 4 hrs on the bike!
Couple of cups of juice or cola.

At the end of the ride.

Were straight in there with a protein recovery shake, banana vanilla flavour today! Some salty crisps, several cups of juice and a slice of cake (or several!)

Dinner

About an hr after the ride comes dinner, and this normally see’s us piling in chicken, salad, bit of pasta (strangely not that much to be honest), a few potatoes, cake and (last night – ice cream, oh yeah!!!)
....oh...and several cups of tea :) and a couple of Steinlager (Scott – great work on getting that sponsor!)
Only 2 days to go....tomorrow (Day 14) see’s us riding to Balclutha and then on Sunday (Day 15) we complete the whole cycling section of the journey to Bluff....ultimately to complete the tip to tip, we have a final 7km trail run to the very tip of Bluff.