Ashburton co-workers Amy Ferguson and Anna Johnson are competing in this weekend’s Coast to Coast race as a tandem team. Photo supplied.Every person who entered the Coast to Coast had a story to tell afterwards, and Anna Johnson knew all too well that not all those stories had happy endings.

But as the Ashburton woman prepared for her third attempt at the iconic multisport race which took competitors from one side of the South Island to the other via foot, bike and kayak, she was hopeful that this time the story she had to tell afterwards would be a good one.

Not one to do the same race twice, Johnson had entered the Coast to Coast as an individual and in a team before, so this year she was tackling the two-day event as part of a tandem team with friend and workmate Amy Ferguson.

Although they knew each other pretty well from working together at the EA Networks Centre gym, after the experience of training and racing together as a tandem team there probably wouldn’t be much the pair didn’t know about each other by the time they crossed the finish line on Saturday.

That’s because racing as a tandem team meant being within 50 metres of each other at all times during the race.

The pair had a tandem kayak and while Johnson was set to take the lead on her favoured run leg, Ferguson was the stronger of the two on the bike.

Together, they made up a pretty good team.

They said they were at a similar level, so staying within 50 metres of each other wouldn’t be difficult, and they knew they could rely on each other.

They knew that if one of them got down, the other would be there to tell them to pull their socks up, and they knew that they’d have a hang of a lot of fun on the trek from Kumara Beach to Sumner Beach, which was set to kick off on Friday morning.

Having someone she knew so well there by her side, was one of the things that Johnson was most looking forward to.

“When you’re out there by yourself, even though it’s the same distance you’re going to cover, it seems longer,” Johnson said.

For Johnson, 2019 was her third attempt at the iconic race.

She completed the two-day individual race in 2014 and in 2017 she went back as part of a team, but it didn’t go so well.

Another boat clipped hers in the kayak leg and broke her boat’s rudder.

With no jet boats allowed on the Waimakariri until the last of the one-day competitors had gone through, it meant Johnson had to spend nine long hours sitting on the riverbank with a broken kayak, waiting to be picked up.

She could only watch on as hundreds of her fellow competitors kayaked past, including her brother – top multisporter Braden Currie – who was in first place in the longest day event at that point, but went on to finish second.

When you’d put so much into preparing for a race only to have a freak accident lead to a DNF next to your team’s name, it was hard, but she’d come to terms with it.

“Everybody that does this sport has a story.

“There’s not a single person that you could talk to that has done the Coast to Coast that hasn’t got a story,” Johnson said.

Johnson and Ferguson just hoped that their story from the 2019 event would be a good one, because they’d worked hard to get to the start line.

The pair’s story began last year after they both competed at Challenge Wanaka, raising funds for Ronald McDonald House along the way after Ferguson’s niece Ruby was born with a tumour on her spine which resulted in her family spending a lot of time living at the home away from home for families in their time of need.

That was Ferguson’s first big experience of multisport racing.

She raced the half, while Johnson did the full event, and after that they decided to take it a step further by completing the Coast to Coast together.

Ferguson had never been in a kayak before and admitted she was petrified the first few times she took to the water, but with an experienced campaigner like Johnson in the boat with her, she was feeling good.

She was excited – with a hint of nerves mixed in – as race day approached and said she had just one goal in mind, and that was to finish.

There was no real expectation within the team as to what time they’d like to see on the clock as they crossed the finish line, they just wanted to finish.

Simply crossing that finishing line was something that Johnson was eager to experience again after the

devastation of 2017, and it was one that Ferguson never dreamt she’d get to experience.

The closest she’d ever come to the Coast to Coast before was when she went as support crew for a friend about six years ago.

“I just remember thinking these guys are amazing.

“I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even run one kilometre at that time,” Ferguson said.

Now the personal trainer was ready to tackle the 30km run, the 70km kayak and the 140km on both road and mountain bike that made up the Coast to Coast, and who knew what challenge would come after that.

For Johnson though, what came next was already decided.

Like many multisporters, in the past she’d suffered from “post-race depression”.

When you’d put so much time and effort into building towards something and when it was done, you felt a bit lost without a goal.

There were two cures – find another goal, or retiring.

In the past, Johnson had found a new event to work towards, but this time she was looking like taking the other path.

With two kids at home who were growing up fast, she said she’d had her time, and now it was her kids’ time.

She still had places she wanted to go and run, and challenges in mind, but from now on they’d be more from a recreational point of view rather than a competitive one.

The time was right, and it just happened that the time had come in a year when Johnson’s brother Glen Currie was in charge of the race for the first time.

Currie – a former top-class Coast to Coast competitor himself – was the new race director and Johnson said it was fitting that her final race was also Currie’s first in his new role.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 7 February 2019