Sportzhub - Stuart's Motor Moa

September 03 2010

Stuart's Motor Moa

Wednesday, 16 January 2008

Stuart Lynch didn't simply cut down his opposition in Rotorua's Wild Moa, he slashed his race record by ten minutes. Pam Hewlett shy of womens record. New Moa Tri success..

Just reading the race briefing sheet for Rotorua's Wild Moa is enough to give nervous paddlers a speeding pulse. "Make sure you are comfortable in your boat under washing machine like conditions," it warns. Melodramatic? Not a bit. Lakes Tarawera and Okataina can get seriously choppy. Past editions of the 66km Moa (run, paddle, mountain bike, run) have seen the rescue boats zipping all over the place. Tarawera especially can be a brute.

But scrap all that in 2008. The sixth running of the fast-growing event saw the benign summer holiday weather rolling on. Race day dawned near to calm and the lakes weren't far off being mill-ponds. Add in bone dry mountain bike tracks in the awesome Waipa forest, and the 76 individuals and 32 teams racers lined up with perfect conditions to set new Personal Best times - including 2007 and 2005 winner Stuart Lynch. moa08start

"I thought beforehand that if I could improve on my last year's paddle [when he took an unscheduled swim] I'd have a chance at the record," said 30-year old Lynch, who's currently living in Te Kuiti but hopes to shift down to the great training of Rotorua.

Perhaps others were eyeing records too, because the pace on the hilly 4km opening run was torrid right from the hooter. Teams racer Colin Earwaker scooted clear over the tracks and stopped the clock at a record 14 minutes. Lynch and Brent Edwards (Rotorua), who race adventure race together for Orion, were quickest individuals in 15 minutes. The front of the pack was close behind - but not for long.

Slicing onto the smooth water below Okataina Lodge, Lynch was soon caught by Andy Fuller, paddling for team DayTwo. The two stuck together all the way to Tarawera Landing, which is 16km of paddling plus a kilometre of twisty boat portaging in the middle. "It worked out really well," enthused Lynch. "Andy's a really strong paddler and DayTwo's one of our sponsors at Orion. He just sprinted away from me at the end."

At the pretty Tarawera Landing transition Lynch had a buffer of over five minutes on Edwards, and even more on Paul Currant (Christchurch), Phillip Morreau (Auckland) and Teunis Schoneved (Whakatane). Even so, onto the 30km mountain bike stage, Lynch kept powering. "I was trying to do a decent time for the race record, although I've learned you do have to save yourself a bit for the run," he said. "I was riding my hardtail bike which isn't so quick on tracks like that so I was trying to concentrate on keeping it smooth."

>>Stu Lynch on the move>> moa08stu

The mountain bike leg begins with 5km of sealed climb from the Landing up to the forest at Blue Lake lookout. From there, the emphasis is on single tracks - avoiding some of the more technical and rutted ones - with a balance of forest road riding. This year, a few tweaks to incorporate new tracks went down a treat. The course was fast, flowing and, most important of all, an awful lot of fun.

Lynch rated the singletracks "probably as quick as they've ever been" in the Moa. His lead continued to stretch, especially after Edwards snapped his bike chain, and lost around 25 minutes. Behind him, veteran Morreau was putting in one of the day's finest performances, gradually starting to close on Currant - and proving once again that extinction is for Moas, not multi-sporters.

Into the final leg run, grunty hills all the way for 15km, Lynch reckoned that fast first run started to bite back. "I think we'd probably pushed a bit too hard. The final run still went well though, I was actually only a bit slower than last year." Lynch ran into the Redwoods forest finish, under those towering 65 metre high trees, in 4hrs 24mins: the first individual ever in the Moa to break 4hrs 30min.

This was a great start to the year for Lynch, who's recently packed in his full time job and in 2008 is looking to race overseas several times with Orion. Malaysia in May, Montana mid-year (the Primal Quest) and Brazil in September (world champs) are all on the schedule.

The battle for second and third was desperately close, with Morreau edging nearer and nearer all the time. Currant just held on, finishing with a 24 second gap on the veteran - who back in October blitzed the veteran's field in the Motu Challenge.

The women's race saw Pam Hewlett (Auckland) win the Moa trophy in 5hrs 21min, just three minutes shy of the record set by adventure racer Anna Berthelsen in 2006. It was Rachel Smith who led - just - after the first run. But Hewlett and Bridget Leonard quickly came through in the paddle, and by the transition onto the bike Hewlett had five minutes on Leonard. Smith was well back. And that was that.

Hewlett was simply untouchable in the mountain bike, riding 14 minutes faster than the next woman, and setting a new individual bike record. She backed that up with a run nearly 15 minutes fastest than Leonard. By the Redwoods, Leonard trailed the relaxed Hewlett by over half an hour, with a strong running Rachel Smith closing back in for third.

In the teams, Earwaker kick-started Fenn Kayaks (Earwaker, Oskar Stielau and Paul Bishop) to the overall win in 4hrs 05min, well ahead of DayTwo's Fuller and Greg Knight (4hrs 20min).

Leishman catches the new moa

Nineteen individuals and eight teams opted for a new Moa twist - swimming a kilometre instead of tackling the 4km run and the paddle/portage. Numbers for the first Wild Moa Off-Road Triathlon might not have been huge, but there was a worthy winner in New Zealand Xterra representative Mark Leishman (Palmerston North).

First out of the water was 15 year old Matt Morreau in a splash over 13 minutes. A few seconds back were team participants, Rob Hamill and James Gurbey and then individuals Patrick Harvey, Morreau's brother Sam and Leishman. First woman was veteran Alison Hamilton in 16mins, trailed closely by Nicola Leary.

It wasn't long before Leishman took control of the men's category, posting the overall fastest mountain bike time of the day and setting a new course record. Leishman's 1hr 22min 26sec was considerably quicker than Lynch, and even faster than multisport teams biker Paul Bishop, who rode 1hr 23min 11sec. Leishman then put in a very quick run time to finish the Moa triathlon three minutes ahead of second placed Harvey, with Matt Morreau third. moas08swim

The women's triathlon race was cleaned up by Leary. She finished an impressive sixth overall and was some 27 minutes faster than second placed Hamilton. Jacqui McKanny was third.

Graeme Pearson took out the veteran men's category, and fourth overall, in a smart 2 hours 51m. Pearson's been dabbling in the boat recently, so for him it was a bit of a toss-up which edition of the race he entered. With glassy water like that, it'd have been an interesting battle between him and Morreau.

Leishman now has his sights on the Australian and - especially - New Zealand Xterra champs in April. His assessment of the newly hatched Moa? "It was really good to have another opportunity to race off-road. It was a really nice swim in the lake. My swim is never top, but it was solid. I knew most of the mountain bike tracks well - Rotorua's like my second home. Then I did a good solid run," he said.

"It was a really pleasing race. I raced at a good steady rate, going at 90 percent but not putting in that extra ten percent hit out, so I'll recover quickly." Leishman plans to front up to the Moa again next year, as no doubt do many of those who enjoyed the perfect conditions of 2008. As Leishman said, "the more off-road races I can do, the better". But relax, Stuart. He's swimming.

Multisport men