Coast-to-Coast endurance race — have some fun, too

Press, 26 February 1983, Page 15

Coast-to-Coast endurance race — have some fun, too

By

STAN DARLING

Competitors in this weekend's Coast-to-Coast endurance race will have a lot of scenery whizzing past them. The race's rewards will not be just high placings and a chance to win wilderness equipment, says the organiser, Robin Judkins. He will know how much they got out of the contest by asking just one question at the end: What did they think of the scenery? “If they say they didn't see it. they were going too fast," he says. Judkins thinks that about 25 of the 100 or so competitors trying to get from Kumara Beach to Sumner Beach by bicycle, feet, and canoes will be in to win or place very highly. The rest will be just trying to complete the gruelling course. Little is being left to chance by the race organisers. Judkins will have 50 people working for him. many of them with the main job of making sure that competitors are all right in the back country. In the Waimakariri River gorge, 12 officials will be dropped at positions along

the riverbank. They will be backed up by a seven-radio network. One official will have to climb about 2000 ft to 2500 ft above Staircase with radio equipment, and another will be dropped at the Esk River. A third will be dropped at the gorge bridge, on the highway between Sheffield and Oxford. “We will establish a line right across the top of the gorge,” says Judkins. The Staircase official will be relaying messages for all radios in the gorge. A similar system will be used in Arthur’s Pass National Park because the park’s transmitter, on the West Coast side of Goats Pass, has been knocked out by lightning. Radios are only there as a back-up. The river itself will be patrolled by Canterbury Jetboat Association craft, and members of the University of Canterbury Canoe Club will travel the course in

kayaks, accompanying less experienced canoeists down the river. “Novice and intermediate canoeists have to buddy up on the river." Judkins says. “The problems I’ll face are from exhaustion and,’ if the day is bad, hypothermia. So the officials are mountaineers, mountain guides, ski patrollers, and kayak instructors, and a majority have first-aid certificates. I don’t anticipate any problems." Race officials will watch carefully for any distress as competitors pass them, and they will be able to pull anyone out of the race at least long enough to ask them questions whose answers may reveal the condition of an athlete. “Those tests are designed to slow them down, get them to start thinking rationally.” Judkins says. “We can ask their name, the day of the week, how old they are. where they are going, why

they are there. ” It is not always easy to tell from outward signs just how determined a competitor is to go on. Judkins also organises the Alpine Iron Man contests at Wanaka, and one year he had doubts about a competitor whose face was flecked with foam after moutain running, and just before the kayaking. He stopped the man to ask how he was doing, and the tired contestant snapped back that he was fine. He went on to finish with a high place. The competitor asked Judkins later about his intention in stopping him. Judkins admitted he was thinking about pulling him out of the race. The competitor admitted he was thinking about flattening the organiser if that happened. “I do rely a lot on the sensibility of the people who are going," Judkins says, of the Coast-to-Coast. ■ One entrant in the veteran section will be Rod Rutherford. the 41-year-old circulation manager of “The Press."

Rutherford says that some young competitors “will be super-fit, all out all the way, and some will probably succeed. “But fast running won't help in the Deception and Mingha (the river valleys on each side of the Main Divide). You're going to have to be sure-footed." Rutherford and others did a trial run through the Arthur's Pass National Park section late in January, when the Deception was in flood. They were forced to do a lot of wading as they scrambled across the riverbed boulders. "It's certainly going to be won or lost on the running and canoeing legs,” he says. A cyclist could pick up a quarter of an hour on other cyclists, but it could take that "long to recover from just one dunking in the river. The race will be postponed if rain causes the mountain rivers to rise too high. Judkins will have marked the water level the day before, .and another check was made early this morning, just before the 7 a.m. start at Kumara Beach.