GODZone Chapter 8 - Canterbury 2019
NO 1 GOAL - COMPLETE FULL COURSE ✔✔
As a novice team with 2 females did we think we could get 14th in GODZone🏅 - hell no!!!!
The defining stage 4 - 84km hike with 4000m elevation was massive. We had to finish by 2pm Wednesday to prevent being short-coursed. It was 4pm Tuesday, we were 23 hours into the hike (all with very sore feet) but believed we only a few hours to go so would get to TA at 1am Wednesday. Perfect!!!! It was then that the GZ crew meet up with us to say that the second half of the hike had taken the lead teams 17/18 hours. This meant we would be over 20 hours. Team moral wobbled. We had only had 4 hours sleep since 1am Monday morning so we decided to sleep in the snow grass for 90mins just on dark to get some energy back. My feet felt like someone had smashed the bottom of them with a sledge hammer so the stop gave them a chance to recover thank goodness!!! Strategy worked and we then keep a fast/challenging pace for the next 14 hours and made the long course with only 2 hours to spare!
We all had tongues full of ulcers from day 2 onwards so eating every hour was horrible!!! On day 3 during the 160km Mountain Bike we were all struggling to get food down and keep it down. Dunc was the worst, struggling to even drink water & I had real concerns of how he was going to get through the race.
During the long trek Sara's feet started to get a slight look of trench foot. So when we found out the trek time had gone from 29 hours to 42 hours my heart sank again. Would she finish? Luckily we had dry socks, betadine & foot powder so she made it through without issue.
Never have we pushed our bodies so hard for so long. On stage 6 we were falling alseep in our packrafts - often! The final MTB stage we decided to step up the intensity another gear & see if we could gain another place. The tow rope was attached to Duncs bike, some pack weight was distributed from the girls to the boys. Instead we got 5 flat tyres in 5 hours so nearly lost a placing. The packraft into Akaroa was brutal & the tank was well empty crossing the finish line.
Did we argue? NO!!!!! Cracks were starting to appear and one more day may not have been pretty but I'm proud/surprised to say we were all very nice to each other. 🙏
A MASSIVE thank you to all our wonderful supporters, we have loved reading your comments!!! And a special thank you to Tavendale and Partners Limited for your generous sponsorship which helped make it all possible.
Thank you Renee Dampier-Crossley for keeping the gym going, Elise Johns for the page updates, Gill McCone for your support & help with the kids, plus Mum for cheering us along.
It's been one hell of a ride!