Busy mum out to enjoy ‘addiction’
Completing the gruelling 243-kilometre Coast to Coast is ‘‘addictive’’, according to athletes in training for this year’s event – again.
Busy Temuka mother Rosie Fitzgerald will line up with hundreds of others on the Serpentine Beach near Kumara on the West Coast on Friday for the two-day event, while a day later Oamaru dairy farmer Paul Gow will be on the same beach for the start of the one-day race across the South Island.
Fitzgerald said she entered the race for the first time last year after being inspired by a friend who has competed multiple times.
‘‘It’s highly addictive,’’ Fitzgerald said.
Last year at the age of 38, Fitzgerald was 12th in the open category for 18-39 year olds and was 16th woman overall in the two-day event.
Despite doing so well she was disappointed at ruining her own race plan by expending too much energy cycling, making for a tough second day. She is looking forward to a better experience this time.
Fitzgerald, considered by friends to be an over-achiever, has long been a multi-sporter, works fulltime, helps her husband Mark with the administration for his fencing business and trains twice a day, six days a week. For example, she regularly paddles for an hour in her kayak and then completes a 50km bike ride before work.
As well as cycling and running in Timaru she travels to Arthur’s
Pass when she can to train, often leaving home at 4.15am.
Kayaking has been something new for her to learn so she has been spending time on the Waimakariri River to improve her skills.
‘‘You learn to ride a bicycle as a child; and running, but you don’t learn to kayak.’’
She said completing the event and touching the sand on the West Coast and then the east the next day was thrilling and gave her a great sense of achievement.
Fitzgerald has no expectations for the upcoming race as the field and weather conditions were always an unknown.
‘‘I want to enjoy it.’’
Gow, 33, is about to race his fifth Coast to Coast after winning the open 18-39 category in 2019 and finishing 14th overall in the Longest Day in 13 hours 6 minutes 54 seconds. He is seeded 10th this time.
He first lined up in 2016 when a group in Culverden, where he was living, suggested it.