Coast-to-Coast endurance race quickly becoming a legend

Press, 8 February 1985, Page 10

Coast-to-Coast endurance race quickly becoming a legend

By

MARGARET BUTLER

For an entire week-end, a 1000 people live, breathe and eat an event that is fast becoming a legend. The Lion Brown Coast-to-Coast is the ultimate endurance race. At the beginning there is the electric, expectant ex-

citement of a packed Kumara Hall the evening before the race. Then the next morning the contrasting mist of a dreamlike beach scene. White rolling surf, lonely flag fluttering from a stack of driftwood, drizzle and wind in the grey

sky. But the competitors are only too alive, nervous and jittery, stretching muscles, swinging arms, waiting. At last, Robin Judkins sets them free, to discover just what hell he has in store for them.

“Well, who’s to stop them?” he says with his own particularly wicked grin.

There is no stopping once the gun has gone. It is two days of total commitment, by competitors, assistants, officials and Judkins.

The organisation is immense. Where else in the world have 300 people cycled, run and kayaked their way from one coast of their country to the other? And where else in the world would so many people do this voluntarily? It is doubtful there is anywhere else in the world you would find a Robin Judkins to crack the whip.

There is something distinctly New Zealand about the whole thing. The people are not bronzed hunks with bulging muscles and well oiled egos. They are reassuringly normal. The odd one or two wrote about their 30 marathons, several ultra marathons, and a dozen triathlons in their one line biography, but most said they "biked to work once a week,” “came third in the open sack race in 1969” and “loved ice-cream.”

Mostly, they are just individuals, and quite happy with the way they are. This is probably why they just shrug when asked “why?”

They do not need any justification. Like running over Goat Pass. To have done it is enough, how it was seems irrelevant.

“It was beautiful up there,” one entrant said, standing in the pouring rain. “Yeah, I took my time, shot a couple of rolls of film,” said another. The casual, happy atmosphere keeps up all weekend, on the outside at least.

There was a wonderful display of saggy, well darned long-johns, chewed up Nikes, home spun jerseys and worn fibrepiles. All kinds of contraptions have been built to carry bikes and canoes, all kinds of cars carry people. Notably few are Landcruisers. Camp sites may look like an advertisement for the great outdoors, but it all seems quite down to earth and easy going, on the outside.

A current of tension runs just below the surface. Everything is directed to one aim. Gear is cared for and organised meticulously, and assistants primed to perform lightening change overs.

Never before have so many bananas been peeled so fast. Protective of their charges, some assistants feed them on all the proper energy foods, and send them to bed while the sun is still up. Others just sit back in their tents, drink beer, play cards, and imagine with glee the worst that tomorrow can bring. Someone has a birthday party, a few others even go for a bike

ride. Sometimes, assistants collapse first. The next morning, pale and queasy competitors are presented with huge plates of spaghetti and told, without mercy, to eat. Mornings start at 5 a.m., when the stars in Arthur’s Pass are still hanging low in the sky, far closer than they seem in the city. The icy air is still and silent, the mountains blue-black above.

As the stars go out, one by one the tent sites come alive. Assistants move away, leaving alone competitors warming cold muscles and checking bikes. They drive into the dawn, headlights burning, going over the day’s schedule, again and again. Sunshine glances off the river and slides quietly into the sky, and kayaks make a brilliant splash of colour on the water’s edge.

The competitors start coming over the hill. Judkins’ cry to “get out of the way” shatters the air and suddenly there is a frenzy of activity. Chocolate biscuits are stuffed into mouths, fingers untie five things at once. Frustration, determination and adrenalin are in every movement. Then they are gone, disappearing on the current, paddling frantically

like clockwork toys.

At the Waimakariri Gorge Bridge, another frantic five minutes, and then the long cycle home.

There are no smooth sequences in this game, even the weather was a blunt about-face on the second day from wind and rain to glaring sun. There is just a mass of images, of gritted teeth, of Kumara housewives in neon pink dressing gowns standing on the footpath, of a cut knee which required five stitches, but which the competitor hadn’t even noticed, of a cyclist hitting a sheep, a runner without shoes, of Judkins’ screaming and laughing. All the way through it, photographers vie to get the best photo, the definitive action shot. But how do you capture what seems essentially a state of mind? Some had done six months training, but some had done hardly any at all. There was no one typical person, yet Judkins held them all together with a common aim.

And at the end of it all, right on the finishing line, after everything he had put them through, they ran straight into his arms. Lost causes every one.