AR legend Rich Ussher reports in!

As fellow MARCHers know, we are big fans of Rich and Elina Ussher. In earlier posts we have interviewed Rich and heard his racing tips and other insights on his approach – see here www.marchadventureracing.com/marching-to-maui/

We blogged Rich and Elina’s race in this years Coast to Coast – see our Facebook entires here – www.facebook.com/pages/MARCH-Adventure-Racing/155694011221558

And below, we have Rich’s race report, which he has just sent the MARCH:

Coast to Coast 2013

Heading into this years race I’d had the most disrupted build up I have ever had. With my efforts to run the body into the ground late last year it had necessitated having the December entirely off in order to try and get things back to a state of good health. I am pretty sure it is the first time in 13-14 years that I have had a full month off and the body was sucking up the recovery like a sponge!

So come race day I’d had just 5 weeks back training and they’d been carefully managed to make sure I didn’t immediately put myself back into the box – after all I have never been known for half measures.

There was also a little controversy around the week leading into the race when some comments I made about the race got a little more attention than I had anticipated – must have been a slow week in the news room. The short of it was I just gave my honest opinion on the state of the race, I definitely expect there are plenty of other opinions out there but I was asked a question straight up and I gave them a straight answer, it was certainly not meant to be a personal attack on Juddy and thanks to everyone who took the time to contact me with support – it was certainly an eye opener where some of the support came from. For all the hype by the time I arrived at Sumner beach a few days later Juddy was very good-natured about it.

Race day was probably filled with more nerves than usual given the abbreviated prep I’d had but I was feeling good – just unsure how long that might last though. The obligatory sprint for the first 3 kms ensued and a group of 11 of us got up the road and out of sight pretty quickly. Everyone worked great together, Sam Clark seemed pretty intent on smashing it up and was obviously feeling good. Likewise Braden Currie who would dart ahead on anything resembling a hill.

Through the first transition and I have no idea how Braden could have got into his shoes so fast – that boy does everything at hyper speed. Sam Clark who’d been in runners on the bike had a gap and I trundled out of the TA in about 8^th. The legs were feeling good though and I quickly moved up into 3^rd and was reeling Sam in who had in turn been passed by the flying Braden Currie.

As we headed up the river bed things slowly spread out, I was tracking Sam and getting a few lessons on the best way to go – I’d pass him, wonder where he had gone and then have him pop out in front of me minutes later, maybe it’s time to pay some more attention to the route choices in the future!

By an hour the legs were starting to complain a bit and Dougal Allen and Trevor Voyce were making up ground on Sam and I, we all joined up until the upper gorge where first Trevor got away and soon after Dougal made a move. I wasn’t feeling any love from the legs and set about trying to limit the damage. At Goat Pass is was apparent none of us were doing enough to limit the damage to Braden who already had 8 minutes on us – he was on a flyer but I was also thinking maybe he’d start to pay for that later on in the day, the race was certainly on though.

Out to Klondyke and I could see Dougal and Trev a few minutes up ahead in the river bed, the gaps weren’t too bad but at the TA we’d lost another 5 minutes to Braden, the gap was starting to look pretty large.

Onto the bike and I had some pretty serious cramping going on which is not conclusive to trying to pull back time. Running down to the kayak I could see both Trev and Dougal setting off so I would have them in my sights from the start to try and chase them down.

I wasn’t feeling too bad in the kayak but was pretty wary after the way the legs had not performed on the run and decided a solid but steady approach would be needed for the first half of the paddle – after all I still had to think about actually making the finish not just finishing the paddle. I caught Dougal pretty quickly and passed Trev just before the gorge. Trev was paddling well and I only inched away from him through the first part of the gorge. We weren’t getting any time checks so it was very hard to know what was happening with Braden. Knowing how he’d paddled last year I was expecting the second half of the paddle was where the best chance to pull back some time on him would come.

At Woodstock I finally got a time split – still over 8 minutes – not good for any hope of pulling him in on the paddle but I gave it a good nudge through to the finish and took almost 3 minutes more out of him, there was still hope that’d he’d gone too deep over the run and the paddle. Apparently it was pretty clear behind, Trev had suddenly disappeared during the gorge, I later found out he’d broken his paddle and had too borrow a plastic blade off water safety before doing another swap with a tail end two day paddler, that was a real shame for him as he had been going really well in the boat and probably cost him a good shot at 3^rd.

I think the run up to bike is my most hated part of the race, trying to get the legs working and I always feel like I’m crawling. 70km to go into a moderate easterly – there was certainly still plenty of opportunity to have a crack. I settled into a good rhythm and there was no shortages of people out there giving time splits – which ones do you trust though. For the most part it was very hard to hear anything but I got the impression Braden and I were yo-yoing a bit. My quads each had a big ball of cramp in them, which I just couldn’t shake and meant there was somewhat of a limiter on how hard I could push.

I certainly didn’t give up hope at any stage but by the final 15kms I knew with how slowly I was moving that Braden would have to have completely gone to lose it now.

The feeling of relief was just as great as ever seeing the finishing chute. The body didn’t have much left to give as I gingerly made my way onto the beach and to the finish line. It’d been a day where I’d felt far from on top of the game but had ground it out for a pretty fair result. I was also happy that at least the body had, had some energy to give after the experiences in October and November where anytime I pushed the body seemed to just shut down. Braden had taken it too everyone and was an impressive winner on the day. Behind Dougal had had his usual barnstorming final ride to secure 3^rd with Sam Clark and Trevor Voyce wrapping up 4^th and 5^th in one of the closest men’s races in a long time.

In the women’s race it had been billed as a race between Sophie Hart and Elina but Sophie was pretty dominant on the day and Elina didn’t fire as she would have expected, still coming home to complete a day of seconds for us but not the performance that she had been striving for.