Karen, my wife of 31 years, and I are leaving for New Zealand on Wednesday May 14th to spend some time with daughter Kim and husband Steve at their home in Muriwai Beach - a 5 minute walk to the Tasman Sea!  Kim has lived in NZ off and on since 1995 and has become a citizen.  A few weeks back Kim found a local XTerra trail race for me and I signed up online immediately!  Also going to Melbourne for 5 days and then Sydney for 8 days.  Runners have been uploading many Garmin running routes for both places.  The Internet has given me access to what looks like many great running routes with complete maps!  www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/australia/melbourne  and
www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/australia/sydney We get back on June 4th and I hope to have a lot of scenic trail run photos to add to our site.  Old Goat Doug
 

Doug, Karen and daughter Kim overlooking Muriwai Beach

Karen, Steve and Kim.

Steve & Doug amongst the tall Toitoi grass

Sheep and green, green fields everywhere!

May 18th - XTerra 21K trail race in New Zealand

KIWI COURSE DESCRIPTION: The first 3.5km is on gravel forestry road and pops in and out of tracks along the way.  This should split the field well before you get into the real good stuff.  You start the trails with a nice fast downhill and will get back onto gravel from the drink station at the 6.5km mark.  Another 200m of gravel and you hit your next undulating trail for a couple of km.  Then you are back onto the gravel and head up Anzac road for another couple on km.  Back into the tracks and you have an open downhill section flanked on both sides by some friendly Toitoi and gorse.  Over a couple of dodgy little bridges and you are into an awesome flat fast section of the course.  The flat section continues with some more gravel on Campbell Road.  There will be a drink station as you turn left off Campbell Rd and get off the gravel for the last time!  It’s all awesome undulating trails for the next 7km to the finish.
 

608 runners showed up for the trail races!! 200 did the SHORT 6.5 km (4.04 mile) race, 252 ran the MEDIUM 16 km (9.94 mile) race and 166 ran the 21K (13.05 mile= a half marathon) race.  I ran the LONG race and placed 148th.  There was only one other runner in the over 60 LEGENDS class.  He was younger than me, so I can still honestly say that no one older than me has beaten me in 3 years now!  At least I beat 18 other younger guys and gals.  Whoo Hoo!
Pre-race briefing for the 9 AM start LONG runners.	Lady runners I met & chatted with early in the race.	Toitoi grass and colorful signs of impending winter down under.  It is May in the Southern hemisphere.	I came across 20 or so of these slippery, rutted muddy sections of the trail.  I ended up slipping and falling 3 times!!  Weird gray colored, soft mud. Like slipping on oil!
This is Gorse.  Petty yellow flowers with many evil long, sharp "looking" spikes.  I brushed against many of these during the race.  You could feel the spikes, but I never got scratched.  Actually quite flexible.	Lots of Toitoi grass along the route.  You can see all the yellow flowers of the Gorse behind the Toitoi.	4 inch diameter interesting mushroom!	Almost there.
Doug finishing!	Google Earth 3D mapped route of the half marathon course from my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS. 21K Race Flyby Tour Double click on this link and wait for Google Earth to zoom in from orbit to the view that shows the red outline of the entire 21K course.  Once it stabilizes, click on PLAY TOUR button or select PLAY TOUR from the drop down TOOLS menu.   That starts the animated flyover of the entire course.  Awesome!	Ginny McArther 3:00:22, Doug 2:45:37 and ? Click HERE for more hints on setting up your Google Earth options for best viewing of Flyby Tours	Seems like everyone fell and got pretty darn muddy!  It was a lot of fun trying to negotiate what felt like lubricated goo.  Fortunately quite soft and no cuts or bruises once you lost it. Would have loved to see how the front runners did it!