The first thing we had to do was meet our fellow Kiwi-runners. There are twelve of us from the UK, US and Canada aswell as a few kiwi’s. Everyone else had met at the Welcome dinner the night before whilst we were flying over the Tasman sea, so there were a few faces and names to remember. However, we already felt we were getting to know everyone upon hearing tales from the previous nights team challenges and we soon felt part of the group.
We took a short ferry ride from the city centre to Devenport so that we could see the harbour, before meeting the vans at the other side. I had a bit of a scare after almost missing the ‘stop’ (whilst in the toilet). I hadn’t known we were docking and was very surprised to find an empty boat when I appeared out of the bathroom. When I finally realised what had happened I had to fight my way out against the flow of people getting onto the boat to find the others. A few moments of panic for me but none of the others had even noticed I was missing!
A few people had been in New Zealand for a number of days already in order to beat the jet lag, however a couple of days easy running had been planned. The first run of the tour (since we had been there anyway) was an approximately 10km trail from point to point starting at Okara and following the ‘walkway‘, and we made our way up there from the ferry port. The van would pick us up at the other side. I was pleased as I had a session to do later on in the day and wanted an easy run. So we set off at an easy pace, and I let the faster guys runs ahead, for once not letting my competitive nature come through. It was easy…for about two minutes, before we started the climb. We were running on a woodland trail and there were some quite steep stepped sections which almost reduced you to walking pace for much of the run. However it was really great to get off road I found the surroundings really interesting….bashing the top of my leg on a sticking out branch was an unfortunate consequence of my enjoyment. The route also included a short beach section and because it was only accessible by following the walkway it was practically deserted. Really calming and relaxing!
In the afternoon, it was then time for us to meet one of New Zealand’s running legends - Bill Baillie. Bill held numerous New Zealand and world records and competed at Olympic and commonwealth games. He is also one of Arthur Lydiard’s disciples (for those of you who haven’t heard of Lydiard he is a renowned coach who developed a popular theory for training based on quite simply doing lots of running!!)
Bill came to give us a bit of a tour of Auckland and we went up a small mountain (mainly in the van) to a great lookout of the city and then to a black sand beach. These places were really pretty and calm and peaceful, however what was probably better was listening to Bill’s endless stories about his experiences as an athlete on the mini bus as we travelled.
Unfortunately the afternoon passed really quickly and then it was session time. I had a track session to do so myself and one of the other girls went to the track whilst everyone else went for a run in the local park.
In the evening the team challenge was resumed. Chris and myself were split into opposing team - aptly named ‘white van’ and ‘red van’ after the two mini buses which have been ferrying us around. If I recall correctly my team’s New Zealand geography and Maori pronunciations were much better and White Van team hold the lead by a narrow margin. More challenges to follow!
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