Mountain Biking 8:40:00 [3]
Off on the mtb in the dark. Headed out with a few teams about 5-10min infront and managed to catch them all at the first slightly tricky road junction where they were stopped. We decided to pretty much just ride our own ride for this one and made good pace. Bobby is a machine on the bike.
This was probably my favourite leg of the race being around a lot of other teams all who seemed quite annoyed to be around us "what team are you?", "the sneaky weasel gang"....blank, slightly frustrated look.
We were a bit slow through the hike a bike section but otherwise pretty good. Happy to make no nav errors despite the map being very hard to read. Had to stop a lot at intersections to check it so it probably wasn't the most efficient to have me as the navigator on this section.
Stopped for a wee break of about 10min to get some food in later in the leg as we had all been struggling to eat properly in the night. About 5 or 6 teams went shooting past (including Thule) while we were stopped so somewhere in the night we must have passed a lot of people!
Tramping 8:13:00 [3]
Coastal trek.
Started in the early morning. We jogged parts but mostly walked. No major issues except for a silly route choice once around the rocks when we should have gone inland. Beaches are pretty but you really don't need 40k of this to appreciate it. A bit of an urban stage and made the feet a bit sore with all the sand and roads at the end.
Got an icecream and coke near the end which was awesome and managed to out smart Colombia (?) in the bushes.
As for Godzone the sneaky weasel gang turned out to be a stronger paddling and biking team which always is a bit of a surprise to me. It leaves me working quite hard on the bike but being a little frustrated on the treks but I guess the opposite is probably happening for the rest of the team!
Kayaking 5:15:00 [3]
We were slow transitioning onto this stage as I guess we were all feeling pretty stuffed. Should have been quicker knowing that the tide was coming in and we could have just sat and eaten some food in the boat for a bit while making progress.
Anyway eventually got into the boats and made good time again on the paddle taking turns towing each boat. Happy to get this section done in the light.