Speights Coast to Coast
Aussie Slant on Speights
Jody Zerbst / 12.04.2006
Background‘The Coast to Coast’ - There was a time when we were not allowed to talk about this race in my family, as it brought up too many painful memories for my father who competed in 1989. He came to NZ convinced he would win the race after beating John Jacoby in their last three meetings. At Kumara Beach he looked around and declared, “There is nobody here that can beat me!� He returned home with his tail between his legs after a very disappointing performance. I was determined not to suffer the same self inflicted humiliation and decided to have more conservative ambitions. Despite looking forward to racing alongside the best multisport athletes in the world, publicly I adopted the saying, “I’ll just be doing my best not to embarrass myself�. I was a lot more relaxed about my training and performance than many of the Australian races I have competed in. Although I didn’t feel like I had done enough endurance training to compete at my true potential, or to win, I realized it wasn’t worth delaying my debut. I came to NZ hoping to do the best I could and to gain invaluable experience for a serious attempt at winning the race in 2007.
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