Another Rob Norcross story

This is a story about running Mountain road, if you don’t know it, it’s one of the toughest roads to ride in the Waitakere ranges and running up is über cool.  I hope to attempt it one day. 

This story comes from the time when the top section of Mountain Road was still loose metal. (don’t want to give your age away Rob but it is essential to the story)

Rob used to be a runner and a pretty handy runner at that.  Sub 3 hr Marathon is a pace I am aspiring to and Rob was that kind of runner.  One day he was on his solitary run up Mountain road, this was probably a good 30km training run.

As he was plodding on the loose metal section he could hear someone coming up quickly behind him.  This was not an every day occurrence but it’s wasn’t unheard of for someone to pass Rob so he decided to keep his head down and plod on at his own pace.  The man passes him at a rate of knots, Rob plods, head down, trying to control his breathing.
Once the man gets 10 paces on Rob he dares to lift his head to see who this monster is that’s  left Rob for dust and to his surprise, dismay, disbelief (call it what you will) he sees the man is running with a bike over his shoulder.  (remember, this is a time when there were no Carbon frames and it was probably a steel number 4 times the weight of a current road bike, sorry to give away your age again Rob)

When Rob realizes what’s just happened he let’s out a gasping, grunt “fu**”
“don’t worry, you will get fit soon” came the reply as quick as the runner had passed.

One day Rob, I will be fit, but I won’t be running up Mountain road with a bike on my shoulder!