The Great New Zealand Race is sold. Coast to Coast.

Every time I go back to New Zealand I look up my good friend 'Juddy', Robin Judkins. Above is a photo I took of him in 2009 on a trip to Arthur's Pass. Every time I see Juddy, I ask him " When are you going to sell the Coast to Coast?" Well he finally did it. This was in the New Zealand headlines today.

The longest running multisport event in the world, the Speight's Coast to Coast, has been sold.

The iconic event's colourful founder and race director Robin Judkins, is teaming up with new owner, Queenstown-based Trojan Holdings Limited after 31 years staging the race from Kumara Beach on the West Coast to Sumner in the east.

"Since 1983 I've enjoyed the ultimate challenge and seeing around 20,000 competitors battle themselves, each other and the environment over 243 kilometres from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean," Judkins said.

"It's a reflection of New Zealand at its finest, just brilliant - it really is New Zealand's great race. But it's time for me to look to a new era with a lesser role."

Each Coast to Coast event has about 3500 people directly involved, generating economic activity and international profile.

"We strive to have a world-class event in harmony with our special environment and wildlife, a passion I will continue to pursue," he said.

"I deeply appreciate the fun and support over 30 years of so many wonderful people - DOC, our managers, volunteers, sponsors, competitors, support crews and local communities.

"I love the event to bits and am really excited about its future.

"I intend to still be there in a supporting role for years to come, at the start to fire them up and at the finish to hand out well deserved cans of Speight's"

The event fits with iconic adventure and tourism-based businesses already operated by Trojan Holdings interests, including the Milford and Routeburn tracks, the Mt Cook Hermitage, AJ Hackett Bungy and NZSki (Coronet Peak, Remarkables, and Mt Hutt ski areas).

Thanks to Stuff.co.nz for permission to use this article.

Reflection on Robin Judkins.

I got to know Juddy well in the 1980s when I competed three times in the Coast to Coast. Then John Woods and I decided to write a history of the Coast to Coast, which we called the Great New Zealand Race. It was fun interviewing Juddy on numerous ocassions and as the years passed, we have become very close friends.

I meet my old friend Juddy every time I go to New Zealand and below are a few extracts from old blog articles.

We stopped at Mt. Rolleston, and gazed at the Bealey Face. Photo: Bob McKerrow

In 2008 my Christmas and New Year present were two spanking, brand new knees that work so well and I feel no pain. The joy of striding across green fields with a strength in my knees is a feeling I have been devoid of for many years, and, to cap it off, no pain.

On Thursday 8 January 2009 I felt I was back to normal seven weeks after the operation as I did totally normal things such as day outings into the mountains and to be in the thick of beech forests in Arthur's Pass.  

My good friend Robin Judkins, the creator of New Zealand's famous Coast to Coast endurance event, pulled up in his BMW yesterday, and said, "we are off to do my pre-Coast to Coast checks and PR."  Being the owner of one of the largest, longest-running, and potentiallly dangerous mountain triathlon, Robin Judkins and his team leave no stone unturned when it comes to organisation and safety. With his car stacked with his sponsors products, Speight's beer, we headed off towards Arthur's Pass.

The first stop was at Jim Adams farm near Sheffield. Jim is a sheep farmer with a large land area and stock, provides a paddock on the road as a car park, during the Coast to Caost. Robin drops off a few crates of beer and talks to him about the car park and how it will be organised. Robin has the common touch, and mixes freely in a warm and endearing manner.

Robin Judkins discussing carparks and safety with farmer Jim Adams. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Looking towards the high peaks of Arthur's Pass. Mt. Avalanche is the prominent one in the left. Photo: Bob McKerrow

How I enjoyed driving up towards Porter's Pass with temperatures soaring up to 35 oC and the wind blowing in my hair. We visited Castle Hill village and beyond that we struck the view of the high peaks of Arthur's Pass. This is part of the mighty Southern Alps that string almost the length of the South Island.

I always pay a visit to Oscar Coberger ski depot which is now the Wobbly Kea. It is a pilgrimage to a great mountain man who brought the European alpine village concept to New Zealand and was a ski instructor, mountain guide and gear hire depot at Arthur's Pass.  His grand daughter Annelise won a silver medal in slalom skiing in the 1992 winter olympics, the first and only New Zealander to do so.

The brief story of Oscar Coberger's shop. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The memorial tablet to those in the Corberger family who have passed away. Photo: Bob McKerrow

This larger building was built by Hans Bohny, a Swiss mountain guide and is now the Wobbly Kea. Photo: Bob McKerrow

After pulling over at the Mt. Rolleston car park, we took in the amazing view of the Otira Face of Rolleston. There were many cars with kayaks and racing cycles on the tacks and the owners were here for training on the kayak section on the Waimakariri River. Robin stopped to talk to the competitors who all knew this living New Zealand treasure.

As we drove, Robin Judkins studied the landscape carefully. Being an artist he's always looking for inspiration. Here is one of his paintings of this area.

Robin Judkins pointing up the mouth of the Mingha River (thanks Jamie) which is where the mountain run finishes. Photo: Bob McKerrow

We then inspected the situation at Klondyke Corner. Robin was delighted one strand of the river came right to the foot of the carpark. He checked all the facilities and talked to competitors who had just run form the West Coast over the Goat pass via the Minga and Deception rivers.

We called in at the Bealey Pub which was built and still owned by Paddy Freaey mountaineer, publican and the 'man who rediscovered the Moa'. Robin and I have known Paddy for years and he came from his house across the road with his wife Rochelle to join us. Here is a living legend. An Irishman who joined the SAS in the UK and rose through the ranks to be an outstanding soldier and an even greater mountaineer. From his base at Arthur's Pass he inspired and trained many of New Zealand's great climbers such as Russell Bryce and Rob Hall. Paddy who is in his early 70s or more, is still actively climbing and doing trips to Patagonia, and other major trips with Rochelle.

At the Bealey Pub, L to R, Robin Judkins, Bob McKerrow, Rochelle and Paddy Freany

Robin with the new manager of the Bealey Pub. During the Coast to Coast, he books out the entire pub for the weekend. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Next it was onto Mt.White bridge the change over from the cycling leg to the long kayak stretch down the Waimakariri River. Here Robin goes in for a swim to check out the kayak landing. To keep his clothes dry he swims naked, not a pretty sight.

At Mt. White bridge, Robin surveying the landing point. Photo: Bob McKerrow

One of the other key people in the region is station master and rail repair man at Cass, Barry Drummond. Cass is an isolated spot on the railway line between Christchurch and Greymouth and its Barry's job, to maintain the track. After Cass, we drove down from Porter's Pass to be blasted by a hot furnace as Christchurch was sweltering in 35.7 oC. As we came into Christchurch the car swayed and lurched in a dangerous manner. We skidded to a halt to find the rear tyre had blown open. Never a dull moment with Robin Judkins. A day where I met Jim, Barry, Rochelle, Paddy and lots of Coast to Coast competitors. Above all, I renewed my relationship with Tane Mahuta and the high Maunga.

December 2011 Meeting Juddy after the earthquake.

Juddy (Robin Judkin's) shows me the gaps and cracks in his house which sustained much damage during the February earthquake. His hillside section has a faultline running through it and there is an errie feeling of 'what next.'  Juddy has been severely traumatised by the damage and the uncertainty that awaits him, and other Christchurch residents. I walked along the beach with him, and climbed up to his hill-top house and enjoyed a pot of tea and bisciuts. Photo: Bob McKerrow 

Although having a damaged house, a section that may crumble away in the next quake,  Juddy was able to find some humour. As we walked along Sumner beach  we came to a decapitated Shag Rock, he said " let's try and do the first ascent of Shag Rock," now headless and renamed by Juddy as 'Shag Pile.' So Judkins asked me to join him on the first known ascent of 'Shag Pile," a difficult climb on shattered rock. Juddy led up a steep gulley, almost to the summit, which we reached, almost together. From the top of Shag Pile we could see Ed Cotter's shattered house, pictured below. Bizzare humour for bizzare situations.

Gurney's at it again

Former champion Steve Gurney congratulates his girlfriend Clare Brockett of Christchurch on day one of the Speight's Coast to Coast on February 12, 2010 in Greymouth, New Zealand.

Gooney as I first knew him, is an amazing tri athlete and adventurer. He was quite an up and coming mountaineer in the late 80's, and I remember his in his first Coast to Coast race with a cycling helmet with two eyes on 10 inch long springs.

Then I remember when he dumfounded Robin Judkins the Coast to Coast organiser, by finding a loophole in the regulations and used a pod on his racing cycle to smash the Coast to Coast record.

We were on stage together in Aucland in 1990 with his race-winning cycle and pod, and recommended to a large audience we start a new national triathlon body, called F.A.R.T, the Federated Association of Recreational Triathletes

Now Steve Gurney is after another world record, Burt Munroe style, as he and four other Kiwi kite-buggy enthusiasts head to Las Vegas to try to break a land-speed record. If Gurney can keep his hands out of the cassinoes there, I would bet my last dollar he will come home with a world record, a la Bert Munroe. Like Burt, Steve is a mad inventor.

Now Gurney is joining four Kiwi kite-buggy enthusiasts who head to Las Vegas to try to break a land-speed record, Burt Munro-style. (See photo above)

Steve Gurney has teamed up with Peter Lynn, who invented the kite-buggy 20 years ago, and Craig Hansen, Matt Bedford and Gavin Mulvey.

They will fly to the United States this weekend to compete in the North American Buggy Expo (NABX) and attempt a world speed record.
The world kite-buggy record is 127kmh.

Gurney said team members had adopted a "Burt Munro attitude" – made famous in the film about the Southland motorcyclist, The World's Fastest Indian – with a "backyard invention" they designed and built.

Steve Gurney in Dancing with the Stars

"Our thinking is Burt Munro-style. We're taking on the Dutch and the US. They know a lot about wind and have a lot more resources," he said.

"We're just inventing as we go."

Last September, Hansen and Gurney , along with Australians Geoff Wilson and Garth Freeman, became the first group to attempt a crossing of the Sahara Desert by kite-buggy and the first to travel by kite-buggy for more than 1000 kilometres.

During the crossing, Gurney was thrown from his buggy face-first into a rock. He suffered concussion, an injured shoulder, a burst eardrum and severe swelling to an eye socket and face.

Gurney said his shoulder "still isn't right" but he would leave for Las Vegas on Sunday regardless.

There would be no rocks at the Ivanpar Lake Bed near Las Vegas, where the NABX would be held. "The terrain is a bit like the salt flats, but instead of salt it's a dried-up mud lake – hard with a sandpaper surface," Gurney said.

Hansen said the team had a good chance of breaking the record.

"If our homework's correct, our machine is technically superior and nobody will be able to go as fast as us," he said.

Gurney said this trip would be a "continuation" of the adventure started in the Sahara, but this time the team would aim for speed, not endurance.

"In the Sahara we used buggies built tough like quadbikes. They would only get up to 60kmh before they started to wobble," he said. "The speed-buggy has a much longer wheelbase, is wider and only about two centimetres off the ground."

Your disability is your opportunity

Robin Judkins left and yours truly right

Old juddy and I go back a long way. I met him first when I did my first Coast to Coast in 1987 and after that we became firm mates.

Three years ago Juddy came to visit me in India and we travelled to Nepal together and had a great time in that fabled city, Kathmandu. We're good mates and exchange emails every so often. Usually I start off with the phrase, "where are you?" and, are you still alive?"

Just over a year ago his reply was, "yes, but just. I've had a quadruple heart bypass." Juddy's determination to drink life to the lees, saw him slowly but surely recover. Some years back we talked for more than an hour about disabilities and how you need to turn them into opportunities. We marvelled at our friend Steve Maitland, who lost a leg in a motor cycle accident, and was regularly able to beat most people with normal legs on the Coast to Coast, a gruelling endurance event over the Southern Alps of New Zealand then kayaking for four to five hours down a major river. Steve Naitland did this event countless times and never saw himself as handicapped in any way. He had the guts and belief he could do anything and he did. Similarly Juddy has made a marvellous recovery after his quadruple heart bypass. Juddy, or Robin Judkins is the organiser, inventor of the Coast to Coast.

The Speight's Coast to Coast is a contest of categories – events within a grand event that allow athletes to measure themselves against those of a similar age or inclination.

There are the two-day individual competitors, those who prefer the company of teammates, and band of intrepid adventurers who challenge themselves to complete the course in a single day.

There are classifications for men and women and, within both, age-group classifications.

From the many hundreds of competitors who are unified by the event but divided by the categories, the organisers have compiled yet another list of 43 competitors who are all different but share a common bond.

They are competing with an existing medical condition. There are no dispensations for them; nor would they seek any. They are identified only so that they may be assisted, should their condition require it.

Their conditions are many and varied – allergies to bee stings, asthma of varying severities, penicillin allergies, renal impairment, a knee reconstruction, a bleeding tendency, a shoulder injury, allergy to sticking plaster.

Ali van Polanen is on the list because she has Crohn's disease, an auto-immune affliction that affects her gastric system. Ulcers form in her small intestine and they persistently recur.

"They are controlled by medication, or when they're deciding to have one of those moments, they're not controlled at all," she says.

"It's a chronic condition. Once you've got it, you've got it for ever. It's just a question of whether you're flared up or in remission. We'll give it a few more months before we say I'm in remission, but it certainly looks as if I'm that way at the moment."

When the Crohn's is rampaging, van Polanen suffers pain and fatigue. There are other nasty symptoms that accompany it too, she says.

"I take an immune suppressant to dumb down my immune system. That's not ideal when you're an athlete, because you want a good immune system, but it's what you get used to and what you deal with," she says.

"I am fortunate. There are some people with Crohn's who are very unwell. For them, an event such as the Coast to Coast would be simply out of the question.

"At times it frustrates me because you feel, `What if?' But it's what I've got and I can't change it. That's the hand I've been dealt and I have to play it the best I can."

Has the condition ever caused her to contemplate withdrawal from athletics?

"Never," she says.

"If I didn't have multi- sport, which takes up so much of my time, Crohn's would become life-consuming.

"I would probably dwell on it a lot more and it would be a real problem."

While she resents the psychological burden of being dependent on medication when she considers herself to be a happy, healthy person, van Polanen views the necessity of it pragmatically.

"I guess it's like being an asthmatic. Unless they have their inhalers, they're in trouble, too. You have to adjust your schedule, and you have to be sensible, but it's what you get used to and what you deal with. It's literally what you make of it," she says.

"In the last six months, I've been ticking along happily. Then you can have periods when you can be quite unwell. It comes on slowly. You have to look for the signs and make sure you listen to your body.

"I've had to get used to managing it and managing my training around it. You can't work out patterns, but I think we've got the medication a little more sorted this year and that is a big help. I've also been seeing a nutritionist, who has been able to help both in terms of sports nutrition and with regards to Crohn's disease."

Although she wages a running war with the condition, van Polanen stoically refuses to proffer it as an excuse for poor performance. She will contest her third Coast to Coast at the weekend, and says she has improved with each one.

"This year, I've been a bit more consistent. I did a bit of strength work during winter. I've tended to drop my weaker disciplines over winter in the past and ignore them. I feel much happier about the way I've been going this year."

The 26-year-old Christchurch consents manager, employed by NZ Windfarms, says the company has been supportive by being flexible with working hours as she prepares for the event.

"I'm very fortunate to have such a great employer.

"Everyone on the staff has quite an interest in multi- sport. People's understanding has been greatly appreciated."

The Coast to Coast will be a special occasion for van Polanen and her family. Her father, John, will be celebrating his 50th birthday when he contests the Longest Day for the first time. Her sister, Claire, will also be doing the running leg in the teams competition.

"It's been great training with dad, considering it was him who encouraged me into running. Not many fathers and daughters can share a sporting interest the way we can share running. It's been good to show him kayaking, too. He only started last winter."

She will start the Coast to Coast with confidence and optimism. As she tames the course, so too will she score another win over Crohn's disease. Two victories in one day – that's success.

So whether it's Crohn's disease. heart problems or you have one leg, the Coast to Coast is a way to prove your disability is your opportunity.