Taking on the C2C

Gisborne multisport athlete George Williams. File photo

Two endurance athletes, two genders, two age groups, two motivations. Both have just one thing in mind . . . to conquer the Coast to Coast in two days. For one it has been a decade-long wait. Jo Teesdale and George Williams are on the west coast of the South Island today, waiting to step on to Kumara Beach and touch the Tasman Sea just after dawn tomorrow for the start of the world’s longest-running multisport race.

Crossing 243 kilometres of mountains, river and plains to touch the Pacific on New Brighton Beach, the two-day classic and one-day world championship race will celebrate 35 years since the first race by just 25 hardy adventurers. For somewhere between 14 and 19 hours, these two and hundreds of others in an international field will pit their months of training against the rugged South Island.

They join a small honours board of Gisborne athletes to have tackled this challenge. The Coast is mecca for the sport but is not without cost in cash, training time and logistics.

Both are going it alone in the two-dayer, with evergreen Teesdale the first Gisborne veteran female athlete to do so. Coincidentally, Gisborne’s Amy Spence will paddle the 67km kayak leg on the Waimakariri River on Saturday as one of a team of three in the open women age group.

While Williams has fewer years in the sport and will contest the open age group, the 31-year-old has been cranking out the hard yards in training and getting used to a new kayak, all sandwiched into a busy farming life.

For him the C2C is a personal challenge. After he competed in a two-man team in the Motu Challenge a couple of times with Simon Bousfield, the two hatched a plan to conquer the big one and did a solo in the Coast Duathlon in November for road time as part of their build-up. Other commitments put Bousfield out this time but Williams continued the necessary training, including a few missions in the Waioeka with Teesdale.

Speaking from the Cook Strait ferry yesterday, he said he was “pretty pumped” and could not wait to get into it.

Like most C2C athletes, there is some anxiety about the 67km kayak section and he wonders if he has done enough in white water. But he feels in good shape and that he has done enough to set himself a tough challenge to finish inside 14 hours.

Teesdale will compete in the classic 50-59 age group and it will be a long-awaited highlight of a long career. The Gisborne orchardist is no stranger to big events, including the Waikaremoana/Wairoa-based Lake to Lighthouse Challenge a few years back.

Already 50 by then, she came through that short-lived but magnificent two-dayer — widely considered tougher than the C2C — with her trademark competitive grin intact. She is quick to point out she is a bit older now and there has been nothing major since, other than the Coast Duathlon and big runs.

So why the Coast now, after feeling her motivation waning? About 10 years ago when race founder Robin Judkins visited Gisborne on a tour, she was inspired to put it on her bucket list.

“I decided it was this year or never. It was my last chance.”

The doubts were pushed aside with family support. Her daughters bought her a voucher for an exercise regime and the training started.

She has overcome “a few issues” — a dodgy knee, which still twinges and aches a bit; a recent sore back; having to up her kayaking skills; and needing to buy a new boat. Ironically, she damaged the stable sea kayak she bought and has had to borrow a multisport boat.

But after paddling Gisborne’s rivers, the Waioeka, the Mohaka and competing in a 50km race at Taihape with Spence, she feels the work is in place.

“The hardest part is always finding time and the time to train together. It’s also a busy time for me in the orchard.”

All that will be forgotten tomorrow as day one dawns on the West Coast.