A frankly crazy weekend with Shirley

Muffins at Frank's

Frank's is a sunny, urban, friendly coffee shop three minutes down the Terrace at which Greg and Sam purchased at least three coffees while they were here for two days. We finally went to Frank's. The ambiance, and muffins, did not disappoint. The sun shone on the little balcony.

After Frank's we drove to Petone to buy a wooden toilet seat (future guests will be pleased to hear it vastly improves the experience) and pick up Roger's 'Crazyman' race entry. In the afternoon Dora went to Breaker Bay, filming for work; Meridian's West Wind farm is hosting a trail running event and Dora agreed to both do the comms and be in the video. The videographer had a drone called Shirley. Watch this space for the release of the final cut.

On Sunday we rose early. It was time for Crazyman!

Breaker Bay

[Roger] The Wellington ‘Crazyman’ race is a multisport event where competitors can choose to do kayaking, mountain biking and trail running as part of a team, or choose to be loners and do two or three on their own. Lacking friends or a kayak, I opted to do the biking and run.

When I signed up for the event one of its most attractive features was it’s ‘anyone can do it’ attitude. Photos of slightly tubby dad-like runners adorned its website, which made me fairly confident I could avoid embarrassment.  Unfortunately, upon arrival at the pre-race briefing I couldn’t spot any such figures, and instead was treated to a vista of lycra-clad chaps and chapesses who were intensely sellotaping protein bars and high-sugar pick-me- ups to their top-of- the-range pedal machines. I, on the other hand, had a pocket full of ‘super snakes’ (like jelly babies but more anguine) and a bike that I’d been told could ‘just about’ deal with some ‘easy tracks’.

Once the race coordinator had stopped philosophising about when the name of the event should become less gendered, he started the race. The first 10km was a fairly pleasant flat cycle along the Hutt River. However, I was right not to be lulled into a false sense of security, since this was followed by 18km of ludicrous climbs and frankly terrifying descents. I’ll spare you a blow-by- blow account of the bike, but needless to say I finished my luminous sweets and water fairly quickly, which made me especially grateful to Dora for providing me with chocolate and H 2 O at the (formula one level swiftness) changeover.

Spot the lycra and clippy shoes. Roger in purple.

Leaving my bike behind for Dora to (wo)man-handle into the car, I felt a bit better, since: a) I’d done running before; and b) the field of competition had stretched out, which meant I no longer had lycra-robots breathing down my neck. The trials were fairly pleasant, if long and interspersed with some four-limbed climbs just to spice things up, and I emerged onto the waterfront of Lower Hutt with only 1km to go. Unfortunately by this stage I was rather tired, which meant the friendly wave over my shoulder to a helpful steward resulted in my nose-diving into the pebble beach. An indirect benefit of this became apparent a little later, when some spectators were able to offer personalised support by shouting "keep going scratched boy", in reference to the blood dripped down my leg.

Upon finishing I limped to the free lunch, limped home on a bus and limped around the flat doing some reading for a distance MA in Global Diplomacy that I’ve just started. With 90 minutes of football (we drew, I was complimented for my ability to hoof the ball down the line and feign surprise when my team-mates didn’t receive it) and 3.5 hours of duothloning behind me, I’m going to eat lots of some delicious Dora-made golden fruit crumble.