Back to Karekare

The Wild West Coast - the view down to Karekare from the cliff tops

I heard the Waitaks calling again on Sunday, so it was up early and off to Karekare to run over some of my favourite trail - the track from Karekare up and over the cliffs to Piha and back.

Unfortunately my legs were feeling a bit tired after a heavy week of training, including a fairly full on tri training brick session on Saturday. As a consequence, I hiked most of the hills (in fact I had no choice!), and gently jogged the flats (not many, if any), and downhills.

The track leading up from Karekare to the Mercer Bay Loop was very muddy and slippery - much worse than a month or so ago when we ran MMMIII.  Nothing too deep, just greasy and wet the whole way up.  From the cliff tops up to the cell phone tower the tracks were good, but my legs didn't want to carry me forward at any kind of pace.

The view down to Mercer Bay - I never get tired of seeing this

From the cell phone tower along the road and down to the beginning of Winstone (opposite the road leading down to Karekare), I started to warm up and was running much better. I had to turn around not far down Winstone, so I could be back under 2 hours.

The run back down was much more fun - mostly downhill and parts quite technical and still very slippery - my kind of stuff!

All in all, just a short one in the end - a touch over 12.5k in 1.37.