Brian Ashby - Coast 2 Coast

The iconic Coast to Coast multisport event is back this weekend. Luke caught up with veteran race commentator Brian Ashby to find out what athletes are instore for. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The infamous Coast to Coast Adventure race is back from today.
Good excuse to welcome back onto the show longtime commentator
Brian Ashby. Hello wedding. Hey, so this is pretty big.
There's around fifteen hundred athletes, but then overall five thousand
people or something when it comes to volunteers and supporters,
like it's really granted.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Following a yeah, well, you know, like for every athlete
that's out there, they have a couple of support crew
to get boats down to the river and transition set
up bikes and all those sorts of things, and the
logistics are sort of transporting yourself from one side of
the island to the other. So yeah, there's at least
a couple of support crew wherever we competitors, so there's

(00:43):
as much as you need. Think it's an exercise in carpaking.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, well we're going more and more accustomed to that
here in ASHBURTA nice to know that there's a lot
of mid Canterbury locals that still tackle this event. We
might come back to that. The race covers four hundred
and thirty k's from the west to the east usually,
although what is it for the sixth time and it's
over forty year history. We've had to make a change.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
There's a week tweak today for the two day race.
No word on the one day tomorrow, hopefully no tweak,
but today. Normally they'd start with the two k runoff
of Beach in the fifty five k cycle to Aikins
the transition there. That's carrying on as per normal, but
the weather, the rain radar looks appalling, and they made

(01:30):
the call late yesterday because the mountain run up and
over Go Pass, very narrow valley, a lot of water
goes through there, rises very very quickly, and the interest
of safety, they decided, no, we're not going to do that.
They made the call so traffic management could be put
in place. They're going to run up and over Arthur's
Pass sort of on the edge of the State highway

(01:50):
and then on trails alongside it and finish at Condo
Corner as per normal. It's actually normally the run is
about thirty k. This is about thirty two. But the
feeling is it will be about an hour quicker than
the traditional run that everyone wanted to do over Goats Pass,
So the day will be over a little bit sooner,
but people will be disappointed. It's not what they've trained for.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, right, they want that terrain, they want that challenge
to me is worst night mea sort of stuff. So
that's where I was gapping Bryan ash We Why do
people do this to themselves? What keeps them coming back? Forty?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah? Look, I mean that's the beauty of it. You
challenge yourself. You want to be the best version of yourself.
You set a goal, you work to a training program,
and you're trying sort of put it all out there
on race day. So it's just, you know, everyone's got
sort of their little subplots in their lives and things
that they get on with, and you know, the to
day race is great because you know there's so many
teams options within two person, three person teams, individual and

(02:49):
then they might step up to the one day you
can build you know, your hobby into a little sort
of sporting career, graduating up into the different versions of
the race, or you might just you know, like teaming
up with your friends and getting out for the weekend.
One might be a good paddler, another a good bike rider,
and someone wants to have a go at the mountain runners.
It offers a little bit of something for everyone, but

(03:10):
the key thing is just, you know, goal setting and
trying to hit those little targets and it's all about
achievement and it's just great to see so many weekend
warriors out there giving it a crack.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
The event's drawn some celebrity attention in the past, the
likes of former All Black captain Richie McCaw. Any big
names this year.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, looks there's plenty of them. And we've got like
a couple of Olympic gold medal rowers out there. Joe
Sullivan and Nathan Cohen are out there. I think Joe's
I think Joe's and a team. Nathan's doing the longest
day he's done tandem with Richie McCaw previously. So yeah,
a couple of Olympic gold medalists out there. We've got
a lot of past winners involved in teams this year,

(03:53):
people like Sam Clark and karn o'donnella and a team
with Paul gar both of them Sam, I think four
or five one day wins. Kareen had her first win
five or so years ago, come back after having a baby,
got people like Joean Kisanowski at Commonwealth Games, silver medalist
and Track Cycling's she's out there racing and a team

(04:18):
this year around Jim and McCaw is racing in the
tandem alongside Shares. Dag and Shares is quite famous for
she's one of her arms, she's amputated above the elbow,
and she's done Coast to Coast before with you know,
set up for the paddle obviously and so on. And
she's done Ironman as well. Imagine swimming through Ironman with

(04:41):
with essentially one arm. So she's pretty special. Shares and
and she'll do the whole course with Jim and McCaw
alongside her. Jim has done the mountain run previously, but
I think this is her first time doing the full
course