We are capable of much more than we realise and the experience of experimenting with boundaries in one area of life can give you confidence to approach challenges in others.

As an avid listener of the podcast IMTalk for many years, I decided to finish off the 2021 Summer season with ‘Epic camp mini’ - a four-day triathlon ‘holiday’ and an endurance experiment for me!

Some friends had recently completed the Epic camp tour of the South a few months prior and were going on this trip - they said I would love it. I was also curious to see how I would handle a camp like this, so I signed up!

The camp started and finished in Nelson and involved biking around 500km around the Nelson region of New Zealand, including the awesome Takaka Hill climb (16km long) from both sides. We ran on some awesome trails around Farewell Spit and Kaiteriteri, and there were daily swims in the ocean and Lake Rotoiti. A few competitions along the way added some extra fun, including a handicapped KOM challenge up Takaka Hill.

Day 1 Epic Camp - Nelson to Takaka

Day 1 was a ride from Nelson to Takaka with a lunchtime aquathlon in Kaiteriteri. Great conditions out to Kaiteriteri, we all had the routes loaded onto our Garmins which made taking the quieter roads out of Nelson super easy. Awesome smooth hotmix bikepath out of Richmond towards the Moutere highway. We rode in bunches and the kms to Kaiteriteri flew by.

Aquathlon was a 900m or so swim and 4.5 km run over some local hills and beaches, pretty much straight off the bike. Water was a pleasant temperature and conditions were calm. Smashed out a decent swim and run and surprised myself with how good it felt, I seem to run better after a 70km bike ride and swim!

It started to rain at bit at the base of Takaka hill. There are roadworks to fix up slips from the cyclone last year in half of the road in the lower part of the climb and we had a special escort by the traffic manager through this section as cyclists can’t usually ride it at the moment. He gave us a good understanding of how tricky it is to fix slips in this area due to the geology and after riding past holes 20+m deep that have to be hand-filled with rocks and compacted in 1m chunks we got a new appreciation for road engineering. The rest of the climb up the hill and descent was wet but it wasn’t too cold. My hands did kind of seize up in a ‘clenched on the brakes’ position after the descent and I couldn’t change handgrip position for a while!!

A 20km spin from the base into Takaka completed the day. The smoothie, wrap and salty chips with a steaming cup of coffee on arrival were demolished. After hot showers and bike tlc we went to Te Waikoropupū Springs nearby, which has the world’s clearest water and dinner at the Mussel Inn. Great first day.

Day 2 - a swim run kind of a day

So epic was not just about the swim/bike/run on this camp, a decent dose of torrential rain overnight had us chomping at the bit for a swim in the chop fest of Tata Beach for our 100m elimination event.

Even the sight of a seal cruising around nearby didn’t put us off. Talk of it being shark food was shrugged off and we plunged in for a warmup.

The concept of today’s swim was simple. Swim as fast as you can between two buoys roughly 100m apart and the slowest two get eliminated each round until a grand final of three. We were set off on a handicapped basis each round based on our 400m times we had given John before the camp, with various degrees of accuracy

I lasted three rounds, on the first your heart rate goes skyhigh then you kind of get used to it. The wind was with us in one direction but pushing us to the shore so there was a bit of strategy to positioning.

Back to base, coffee, more breakfast and we jumped in the vans to Farewell Spit for a 10k wild, exhilarating cross-country run across the hills and dunes to wilderness of Whirinaki beach. We had a break in the weather just as we arrived and it turned into t-shirt conditions and only rained again at the end of the run.

Back to base again, lunch with hot soup, yum, and the heavy rain continued so the planned ride was abandoned and we settled in for some epic coffee drinking instead.

Later on it was supposed to ease so plan was for a walk to Wainui Falls. It was still raining reasonably hard but no one batted an eyelid by this point. Plus our motel rooms resembled saunas by now with the heat pumps cranked up to about 25 degrees in an epic attempt to dry shoes, jackets and wetsuits

The walk was fun and the rain had pretty much turned the waterfall into Niagra Falls. We almost maxed out the number of people recommended on the swing bridge but it held up just fine. Just as well as the river below was running at epic speed.

Back at base I had a great massage with Kylie Cox and we got our handicaps for the KOM tomorrow from Takaka to the to of Takaka hill. I was super happy with mine at zero and started contemplating my plan of attack!

Dinner in a local restaurant and more discussion of KOM start times.

Day 3 - Takaka-Murchison

A short swim first thing from Tata beach then an epic ride over the hill to Murchison, about 180km.

Yesterday’s torrential rain disappeared overnight and forecast was great for today. We went back to Tata Beach for a sunrise swim and it was almost like a mirror with a few logs floating around at the shoreline.

We smashed out a lap of the bay and headed back for a quick transition into today’s challenge, the Takaka Hill handicapped KOM (or QOM!).

The route was from Takaka itself to the summit, about 30 km in total with a climb from around sea level to 750+m over the last 10km. Pam and were off first and we took the lead for 5mins each to the base of the hilll then Pam said ‘don’t wait for me’ and I got into climbing mode which is actually my favourite part of road biking! After the 20km warmup I was feeling brilliant and zipped up to complete the challenge in about the time I thought I could and scooped u the QOM, boom

It was a beautiful climb up, the mist clearing, the view opening up, feeling good, definitely one of the highlights of the camp so far.

After descending into Motueka we had about 45km to ride to get to the first aid station at Tapawera at the 95km mark, just over half way for the day. We rode in a couple of bunches, I was in the ‘grupettto’ bunch. I fell off the back a bit towards the end of that section with a few surges over the rises where I lack a bit of power the others have, but we got some better call outs going after the break and we more or less held it together to the last aid station at the top of Hope Saddle at 130km (which felt like a tougher climb than Takaka Hill!) and most ofthe way to Murchison beyond that which was pretty much 50km of downhill. I tried my first coke on a bike ride (and for over 20 years!) at the Hope Saddle aid station which lived up to its ‘black gold’ nickname of giving you a boost from the caffeine and sugar. Bunch front runner Paul Watt became my camp domestique and towed me in for the last 20km - thanks heaps Paul!

At the motel I almost simultaneously consumed a smoothie and cheese & ham croissant with a mug of coffee and went out with my Wellington buddy Rachael for a shake out run on the local trail.

It was nice sinking into a couch to eat dinner at the local pub. My QOM prize was a pair of IM Talk biking shorts, cool, and it was fun being interviewed for the podcast later on!

Weather is also looking good for tomorrow, we’re heading 60km uphill to St Arnaud for a swim and run then 88km to Nelson which is net downhill but with some hills. Might need a bit of help from my new domestique but hopefully I can complete it all, so far so good anyway and not bad for a Sprint triathlete!

Day 4 - Murchison to Nelson

Today started with a 60km steady climb into St Anaud back-tracking on a long descent we rode yesterday. I had contemplated what it would be like riding back up it on tired legs while flying down yesterday and wasn’t super looking forward to it.

However, I’ve worked out on this trip it takes an hour for my body to really get going on a long bike ride and be feeling like I’m firing on all cylinders, so today my game plan was to just ignore any sense of fatigue when I got on the bike and for the first hour and believe I’d be feeling fine in about hour.

It worked, an hour in I was feeling good and kept with the grupetto bunch to St Anaud.

We were barely off our bikes when the next activity started, the handicapped 500m elimination run. We had been seeded based on recent best 5k times, and the course was back and forth across a road in the lakeside area with a steep slope at one end. Slowest two eliminated each round. Christine ‘the Grinder’ and I were set off together and did one decent rep but were out on the second round. We didn’t mind! Plus it meant I could go and lie down on the grass for a bit. Shane Collett took out the competition in style with more running than anyone has ever seen him do.

Highlight of the day was a swim in the lake. The water is pretty clear and the backdrop of mountains make it spectacular. It is usually freezing and has lots of giant eels in it but I came prepared with my new neoprene skullcap and booties. It wasn’t actually too chilly today probably around 14-5 degrees C. We did a 500m loop of some buoys and the cool water soothed my tired little legs enough that I figured I would definitely be able to make the remaining 88km to Nelson.

The grupetto bunch held together for about 10km then one by one we fell off the back until it was all spread out. m So I soloed into the aid station at Wakefield and into Nelson. Beer and hot chips with the crew and another wee lie down on the grass.

I wanted to come on this camp to see if I could do it, plus tour a favourite part of NZ, and enjoy hanging out with a bunch of like-minded people where nobody thinks you are bananas for wanting to be uber active and explore the limits of what’s possible.

I knew coming in that doing this camp would likely take me to my limits especially as I only signed up a couple months ago in the middle of a Sprint triathlon race season and didn’t prioritise training specifically for this.

I had figured my general strength/endurance, previous biking history and a boost from a few bike packing trips over summer would be enough to complete but it was kind of an experiment to see in what state I’d be by the end.

A few years ago riding 100km at the Grape Ride felt like a massive feat of endurance to me and I wouldn’t have even contemplated doing something like this camp. Since then 100km rides have become normalised and I know I can do one fine on minimal bike training. But as a short course triathlete, I rarely do rides longer than four hours and if I go on a bike packing trip and do something longer I normally break for a bit longer than we did on the camp rides.

So how did the experiment turn out? Physically I did pretty good for about the first four hours of riding then the wheels started to fall off a bit towards the end of the day in terms of ability to hold any power going over rises which is where I tended to fall off the back. I’m also a slow descender. The minimalist camp training preparation definitely showed up here! Mentally I was pleased that I didn’t give up, chunked up the day mentally and maintained a positive mindset.

When I rolled in to finish I felt a little bit emotional and it was hard to talk for a bit. I’d definitely had the camp experience I wanted in all aspects, physically, mentally, the scenery, the company, making new friends and hanging out with existing ones. If I did it again I would definitely want to train more specifically to handle the longer distances better but the timing with races meant I chose to kind of wing it and see with the goal of camp completion.

So apart from a couple moments when I wasn’t 100% sure I’d finish, my attitude was to have a go anyway until the wheels fell off which they didn’t. Just got a bit slower towards the end!

So ...mission accomplished, a few notes to self for the future and a really really great experience! Thanks heaps Epic Camp Mini team!

Epilogue

During the camp a bunch of us were interviewed for the IM Talk podcast the following week! Listen to the camp stories here!