Toi's Challenge... just a run around town...

... I wish. I have been eyeing this race for a few years and finally this year it did not clash with anything else I had planned. 

Very reasonable entry fee of $40 pleased me straight away. I did a bit of research and could not find a Garmin profile anywhere... so looking at the map it looked pretty straightforward... I was in for a few surprises!


I got there nice and early (as I usually do), got a good close park and picked up my registration pack. Saw a few familiar faces including Vibram Tarawera Ultramarathon organizer Paul Charteris.

The race starts out with a bit of a dash across the park to squeeze through the chute and out onto the road into downtown Whakatane. 

Not a great start for me as I am now a true trail-runner and do not like roads at all... but it was only for a km and a half and then it was replaced by my other non-favourite, steps! They were very nice steps... with pictures on (called a vertigraph I hear, see, you can learn new stuff reading my blog)... but steps nevertheless. However the field was not too spread out yet and this was a walk up for just about everyone.

Then a few hundred metres more up the road and we hit the trail  - Nga Tapuwae o Toi. Could have been a great trail... but more steps made it hard work. And we climbed.... and climbed and then climbed a bit more until we were well over the city we left just a few minutes before.




Nice running up and through the Kohi Point Scenic Reserve, tight single trail procession, hard to get past anyone in front without just about sending them down the cliffs... although a few nutters tried to push past.

Just before the 5 km mark the first major descent occured as we worked out way pretty quickly back down to sea level and onto the rocks. A little bit of rock running interspersed with some hard and soft sand made this a fun bit of the run. Ever since my first Xterra at Shakespear Regional Park on the Whangaparoa I have loved coastal rock running. This was not quite at that level... but a bit of fun nevertheless.



 
That fun was rather short-lived though as we were greeted with yet more steps to climb up from the beach and out of Otawairere Bay. This climb was only about a half a kilometre (felt longer) and then we were back down and onto the beach for the run to the Surf Club and the turn away from the coast.

Through the lovely carved 'gateway' and the climbing starts again. Still a few steps thrown in just to 'p' me off and a steady hard slogging climb for about 4km with a few little downhills thrown in to make you think you were finished. Then, just past 13km it really heads down and down... the body is saying "praise be this is good!" ...


 
....and then someone changes the script and your totally knackered body finds itself battling to get up another climb that lasts the best part of a k and finishes you off. But this finally is the last hill and then its down... largely down steps and onto the road. A km around the road, skirting the park and then down the chute to a welcome finish and a fabulous punnet of strawberries from the sponsor Julian's Berry Farm. 


2 hours and 9 minutes was about what I expected and a wee bit slower than I hoped.

All in all a well organized event by the Whakatane Athletic and Harrier Club. The club have been doing it for years and it shows in a polished product that most of the pro companies would be happy with. The only negative for me was that the prizegiving was 2pm... 3 hours after my finish. I was going to stay, but like most of the out of towners, in the end I got on the road and headed home.




Would I run Toi's again? Probably not, I like races that I can run most of, Toi's Challenge - like I found the West Coaster - is a race where I had to walk too often with lots of steps and hills too steep for this old bugger to run. It was an enjoyable experience though and one to file away with my growing list and one I felt I had achieved something by finishing!


My Garmin link.... Toi's Challenge by mike3950 at Garmin Connect - Details