It seems like one of the trending activities for athletes and outdoorsy people is to go beyond the usual 5k and enter the world of adventure or multi-sport races whether it be a triathlon, Tough Mudder or a Warrior Dash. Queenstown, being the hip and adrenaline-addicted town that it is, is no different and launched the Peak to Peak challenge a few years back.
Everyone at work this week was talking about the Peak to Peak challenge happening on Saturday, July 21. The goal of this winter adventure race was to link together the two ski mountains in Queenstown: Coronet Peak and The Remarkables. The challenge starts at the top of the Remarkables Ski Field with a 2km ski or snowboard down to the base. Then there is a 17 km mountain bike down the mountain to the shores of Lake Wakatipu. After the bike portion, participants kayak for 7km across the lake and reach Queenstown beach. At the beach they don running shoes and run uphill for 9km to reach the Coronet Peak hotel. The last part of the race involves a grueling 9km ascent on a bike to reach the top of Coronet Peak.
Today I watched the paddle portion of the event from the window in my bedroom. A multi-sport race is one thing but doing it in the winter with snow, ice and cold winds is an entirely different matter. Many of my co-workers were competing and there was stiff competition between staff from both of the mountains. It will be fun to see who prevails this afternoon.
For awhile now, Sean had been wanting to do the Solar Eclipse Marathon in Cairns while we travel, but after reading about the event a little more closely we found out that you have to purchase a tourist travel package in order to run the race if you are not an Australian resident. So instead we are going to try and be up in that area to see the event anyways, even if we can't run the race. So far, trip planning is fun and rumor has it that sister Sue will join in on the action - can't wait!
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