The Climb to the Top and the Bev May Womens Tour

I was pretty happy with last week's efforts, and by Tuesday morning's interval session, the legs were still a little heavy, but it certainly didn't take away from the stunning sunrise I enjoyed as I made my way across the Manawatu River. A single lazy cloud hung in the air above the windfarms and the sun shone through from behind and sent strips of colored light dancing across the landscape, all the way down to the river below... What a sensational way to start the day! A day at the office was then followed up with a bit of TLC for my aching, tight muscles from Barb at XALT 110% Sports Performance. Being at such a late stage of my training, the body is taking a bit of a battering, and without regular massage, this is the time when injuries start to manifest themselves, which is something I need to be very wary of. The evening was then filled with "team meetings" on the phone and some very confused internet searching that resulted in John and I finally securing our "race extras" for the Cape Epic, paying our transponder deposits, and completing our other "outstanding actions"... It was a bit of a relief, but a pretty costly exercise!

To be honest, generally after a sports massage, I feel pretty ordinary... It's a couple of days later that I start to feel like a million bucks, so when I headed out for my hill reps on Wednesday evening, I still felt a little sluggish, but my muscles felt really nice and free and strong. It was a beautiful evening so I headed up to Pahiatua Track to do my 10min hill reps. One thing I have pinpointed as being an issue lately is that I have been doing a lot of powerful climbing out of the saddle, which is great for the shorter stuff, but not so good for the longer climbs. Generally speaking, climbing out of the saddle uses a lot of energy, and whilst it certainly has it's place, I was quite determined tonight to focus my session on seated climbs. I was pretty strict on myself... There were two steeper pitches on the climb where I was "allowed" to get up out of the saddle, but I had specific roadside markers as to where this could start and where it had to end, then I would finish my 10min seated climb with a handlebar-throwing, out-of-the-saddle manic sprint to the end. For some amusing reason, as I climbed, I couldn't seem to get #20 of "The Rules" out of my head... For the record, though, I needn't have referred back to rule #5... I was already abiding by it. It was a hard session, but I was very pleased with how I rode. I achieved negative splits on each 10min rep except for the very last one, and after the final hill rep for the evening, I treated(?) myself by climbing the rest of the way to the top and checking out the amazing view that stretched out across the landscape towards Hawkes Bay (the climbing was well worth it!). After a set of 10sec sprint intervals on the way home, I arrived pretty spent, but on quite a high from having such a good session on such a spectacular evening.

Thursday morning I was rudely awoken by my plyometrics session and then joined in the Pedal Pushers group ride in the afternoon after work for a lively little 50km jaunt. It was a beautiful evening, and a pretty good training session because after the last couple of days, the pace of the ride was probably a bit more lively than I would have managed by myself... A geographical blunder part way through the ride saw me overshoot a turnoff just as I was about to take a turn at the front... There was a mixture of berating and apologies from the bunch, but to be honest, joke was on them... It meant I went back to the pack and missed out on having to cut the wind for them (not that I would have been much good to them, anyway... Maybe that just worked out best for everyone involved!!!). I was pretty stoked to be able to hold most of the fast guys as they galloped away in a sprint for the last 5km, then even more stoked to crawl into bed after packing for my trip to the Bev May Cycle Tour for the weekend.

After a long drive from Palmerston North to Morrinsville on Friday evening after work (I had a couple of "what was I thinking?" moments during that drive!!!), I headed off to the Bev May Women's Cycle Tour on Saturday morning. I must say, I generally find road racing a little bit boring and "serious" so I do little "fun" things to try and make it a bit more exciting. Today, I decided to wear my new POW full-fingered gloves in a mismatching pair (pink on the right and blue on the left). Nothing says "I'm a mountain biker" at road races more than wearing full-fingered gloves and having SPD pedals on your road bike. Being a mountain biker is a great excuse to not quite understand the tactics of road racing (even if you actually do). Saying "oh, sorry, I didn't know... I'm a mountain biker" bears the same weight as having used "Oh, sorry, I'm Australian" on numerous occasions since I moved to NZ... It's a fantastic comment to diffuse frustration, and maybe even gain a little sympathy.

Our first task for the tour was a 12km Individual Time Trial. I set off at my allocated time and had real difficulty getting into a rhythm (a lot of other riders said afterwards they had the same trouble). It was a surprisingly hilly course for a time trial and I struggled to stay seated and my legs just didn't feel like they were firing on all cylinders. I ended up knocking it out in 21min 35sec at an average of nearly 32km/hr, which I thought didn't seem too bad. I not a great road racer, but it doesn't mean I don't put my all into it, and I was pretty disappointed when I saw the results and I was right at the bottom of the rankings. Having said that, my time was probably within 40secs of most of the bottom half of the field, so it wasn't way out of the ballpark, and I didn't have disc wheels or a funny-shaped helmet, either (which I am told can account for up to 30 seconds!).

Afternoon time came and we had an 85km road race to tackle. I was feeling really wasted by the time we lined up for our roll-out, probably from the drive the evening before, but once we got moving, I came right. I sat quite comfortably in the bunch, rotating through. We had four laps of the circuit to do before moving off the circuit and finishing on a hill climb. By lap two, I was feeling quite good, and there was this spot on the course where there was a sharp left hand turn followed by a short, sharp climb. I happened to be positioned at the front of the pack and just dropped the hammer a little up the climb and gave it a bit of stick, then I looked behind me to see why no one had rolled through next to me and I had a good 100m on the peloton... I had just instigated an attack!!! COOL! I didn't want it to go to waste, so I dug in for a bit and got out to about 200-300m before they started reeling me in... I must admit, it felt fantastic been right out there ahead of the bunch. It was a pretty good confidence booster. The peloton finally reeled me in, but I doubt they were very happy with my antics... I had just made them chase me on an attack that actually had no real tactical advantage, asides from maybe dropping a couple of riders off the back. As we came through to the sprint prime, I was feeling a bit cocky and tried to go again and take the sprint points. This was where my lack of understanding of road racing came into play... I went way too early for the sprint and got caught right on the line (although I took the 4th place sprint points, which was pretty cool... I've never taken sprint points before!). I contested the sprint so bloody hard that I just had nothing left in me, and as the course took a left turn up another climb, the peloton taught me a lesson and attacked the climb... I had nothing left to give after the sprint and I got dropped. I still had two laps left to go. I was on my own and it really was my own fault for being a cheeky little smart-arse, so I just had to dig in and do the best I could. To be honest, I was initially really angry at myself for doing something so stupid. The move had cost me any chance of a decent GC ranking. As I continued to push on, though, I was actually setting a really good pace by myself. I could see the bunch in the distance and after another lap, they had only gained 4mins on me, which was encouraging, and although I got dropped, I felt I had achieved something on the ride for the day, not to mention I was still feeling quite strong and was having a great training session. As I reached the last turn towards the final climb, I picked off another rider who had also been dropped. The climb to the finish line was pretty brutal, but I felt ok at the end (not brilliant, but not crap). I finished only 11mins behind the bunch that had dropped me 45km beforehand and had actually picked up four GC placings. I was quite pleased that, given how hot it was, and I was by myself for half the distance, I still managed to hold my own quite well. It was a great training day for Cape Epic... It is better to have gone hard and lost than never to have gone hard at all...

I woke up on day two feeling pretty good. This is actually a really common theme for me on multi-day races, which is highly encouraging. First up we had a 77km road race and after a police escort through town to the start line again, we were off. The lap today was quite short with a KOM prime and a sprint prime. It was undulating with numerous short, sharp climbs, which made it a good course to attack on. The pace off the start line was pretty brisk and as we made our way around the first lap, it was looking like the bunch would break up pretty early. After contesting that sprint in yesterday afternoon's stage, I was pretty keen to have another shot at a couple of sprints today (I had obviously developed an aptitude for sprinting somewhere along the line this year!). As we hit the flag for the first sprint prime, I found myself way at the back of the pack and a bit under-prepared for it, but I jumped at it anyway and made my way at quite a pace down the left hand side of the bunch hugging the edge of the tarseal dangerously close in the process. I was surprised at the pace at which I passed the bunch and pulled myself into 4th in the sprint just as we hit the line. The pace I had come through with was enough that it catapulted me off the front of the pack before I sat up and rejoined them... It was actually a really cool feeling contesting the sprint, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I had enjoyed it (maybe something for me to look at more seriously next year?). I looked forward to the next sprint prime on lap 3, but unfortunately, I ended up being dropped by then and didn't get the opportunity to contest it. As I settled back into the bunch, I felt my legs recovered well from the sprint. I was, however, finding it hard to maintain the full pace of the bunch for long periods of time. They set a pretty hot pace the first couple of laps (I am told the pace backed off a bit on the third lap... A bit too late for me) and when one of the girls attacked and the bunch chased her (being one of the higher GC riders), the whole pack splintered into pieces. There were a few riders well off the back and myself and two other riders sprinting our guts out to get back on. One girl made it back on (and actually went on to win the stage!), but I didn't quite make it. I had set out to stay with the bunch today and I had played well so far, so I was pretty disappointed. Regardless, I put my head down and pushed on at a good pace. The other rider just behind me joined me, but she wasn't very interested in working too hard at the front and seemed more interested in riding alongside me having a chat, which I found a bit frustrating. Even after 10km, we could still see the pack 500m-1km ahead, and I couldn't help but think if I had been with a rider that had a slightly better work ethic, we may have even got back on to the bunch. On the 4th lap, we picked up another rider who had been dropped after a mechanical, and I was back in business with her. The other girl fell off the back of us not long after... We worked really well together and she was keen to work hard even though we may not get back onto the pack. She was pretty complimentary of my riding and told me I rode really strong up front for long periods of time (she even suggested I was maybe a good time-trialler, to which I told her she should look at the previous morning's results before putting money on that!). I all fairness, I did belt out some pretty hard time up front working for both of us, but she was pretty quick to recognise this and told me to take the placing ahead of her at the finish line, which didn't make much difference to the results, but was a nice gesture. In the end, after spending 50km out of the bunch, we were only about 10min behind the main pack when they finished, which was a pretty solid effort.

The thing I was finding frustrating in this race was that I was able to push out good efforts for long periods of time, and super fast efforts for short periods of time, but seemed to lack that middle ground of fast pace for medium periods of time to stay with the pack at the time of an attack. It may have just been fatigue (as I was training through the race) or it could be a training gap that I need to get to work on. It was especially noticeable on the afternoon's stage in the criterium. The pace was pretty hot off the mark and I barely clung on to the back of the pack for the majority of the time I was with them. One thing I struggled with was maintaining speed out of the corners, so I would be with the pack, take a corner, then have to sprint to catch the bunch again before the next corner. The final straight into the sprint line/finish line was on an incline (which didn't look like much, but was bloody hard work at the pace we were maintaining) and there was also this terrible swirling wind that seemed to make it's way around the course as a headwind the whole way around, so basically, once you were of the back of the bunch, you were stuffed. I stayed with the bunch for a good 15min until our second sprint lap, and it was the sprint lap that blew a few of us off the back. I was hoping to keep up a reasonable enough pace to not get lapped out (thought I was hallucinating when I saw a lycra-clad male fairly following the course on his mountain bike), but ended up getting lapped after 30min, with 2 laps to go (disappointing!).

I was actually pretty happy with how I went over the weekend. I put in a couple of gutsy calls, which I enjoyed, and it was a great weekend of training. I would have loved to have stuck with the bunch a little better, but hey, that's just life on the road. I actually reckon that next year, I might like to work my training around peaking for the Bev May Tour and see if I could do something a bit more productive results-wise with it... But I think I might get Cape Epic and 24 Hour Solo World Champs ticked off first before I worry about that!

There's still a couple of aspects of my riding that I hope to get some work in on before I head off overseas, but to be honest, I think the most important thing to me over the next month will be getting enough rest and looking after myself. The last couple of weeks have felt like a monster hill that I'm still climbing. There's a lot more than training. I still need to put in 100% at my job, I have finances to organise, and a huge "to do" list before I go, and things don't always go as I had planned or as smoothly as I think they should. It's being hard work, but I'm nearly at the top. The thing I like most about climbing hills is that you get to see the view at the top. I suppose you could look at that in a metaphorical sense, too... We climb and climb and work hard for months and years on end to eventually end up at the top and enjoy the view... The result of all that hard training. I guess at the moment, I'm at that point where I'm in the hurt box, with beads of sweat and tears streaming down the side of my face, and I can see the crest of the hill... All I have to do is get up out of the saddle and put in a final, significant effort to enjoy the view at the top and know that I climbed that hill with everything I had... And I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to see when I get there... The sun rising over the mountains on my next big adventure...

Urban Crits and Other Fun Bits!

My week started off with a couple of very poorly used rest days after the St James Epic... My first training ride for the week was Wednesday and I was still feeling pretty wrecked, which was my own fault. I tend to use "rest" days off the bike as an opportunity to get other stuff done and on this occasion, had well and truly cooked myself before the week had begun. It was a very good lesson on the importance of recovery, especially coming up to Cape Epic.

Wednesday was National "Go By Bike Day" and I celebrated by riding my old skool cromoly Yak into work (complete with spokey dokeys and UV pedals that turn purple in the sun). It was also my first training session for the week, and with said fatigue in my legs, I set off on a blustery, drizzly, low visibility day in search of a 10 minute hill to do reps on. Pahiatua track was out of the question in such poor conditions, so I was forced to settle on Ngahere Park Road. For those of you that don't know it, Ngahere Park Road is a perfect hill for 5 minute reps, but beyond this, it pitches up at a heinous angle, which, up until now, I have only been able to climb in my easiest gear out of the saddle. Truth be told, it was a miserable day on the bike, but it was better than having not being on the bike at all. I returned looking like a drowned rat and crawled into bed for a completely uninterrupted night of sleep.

The following day, I felt marginally better, but was looking forward to an after-work date with The Ninja for the Mitre 10 MEGA Summer race series held by Manawatu Mountain Bike Club every fortnight. I arrived at Massey Uni not quite sure what sort of mountain bike ride I would be expecting to find. What I found was initially a little terrifying, but ended up being an absolute blast! There was a track marked out around the walking tracks of the uni, down stairs, around buildings, up ramps... It was basically an urban crit. The start somewhat resembled a critical mass gathering as a bunch of raucous mountain bikers launched off the first set of stairs, landing on the street below. Previously terrified of riding stairs, by the second lap, I was quite comfortably hooning down them at speed and hollering like a child on red cordial as I pulled skids on The Ninja around the uni campus. It doubled as a bloody good workout (it went something like this... SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT SPRINT... BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP down the stairs... SKIIIDZ round the corner) for half an hour straight (plus one lap)... After a slow start to the week, it certainly was the excitement I craved and after softening the rear shock by 10PSI, The Ninja handled it so well (Good Ninja!). Friday was another scheduled "rest" day, and this time, I was sure to use it wisely!

Saturday's workout was one I had actually really been looking forward to... A 150km road ride. I'm not sure why I was looking forward to it so much... Maybe because it simply let me get out onto some roads I hadn't ridden before for a bit of variety, or maybe it was a relief to be getting some big miles into my legs after I felt I had pulled up fairly poorly from last week's race. I think I still kinda felt like I had to reassure myself that I was still capable of pulling big, hard days on the bike. I had a bit of a sleep in, and set out reasonably well-rested to complete the Apiti loop. I set a reasonable pace, and ate well, and I felt pretty good. About half way through my ride, I spotted another cyclist up ahead and (as you do) picked up the pace a little to see if I could catch the other cyclist up the next climb. I was stoked to see it was another chick cyclist... Two hard women out in the middle of nowhere riding their bikes for no other apparent good reason than the fact that it was a fun thing to do (YEYAH!). By the time I reached her, I was pretty amped and on the rivet, so didn't hang around for much longer than to say a pleasant "hi" and exchange a sentence or two and then I was on my way. The riding up through Pohongina Valley is absolutely stunning. There are some magic views and very little traffic. There are a couple of big climbs, but nothing overly steep. I think the thing I noticed the most on the first half of the ride was that everything that appeared flat, was actually a false flat. It was pretty wearing, but good training. When I hit Kiwitea, I had planned a little side-route to try and avoid the horrendously boring stretch of road between Cheltenham and Feilding, and it appeared to be going really well until I arrived at my next turn to find a gravel road (annoying!), so I was forced to backtrack a little and climb back up to the main road and endure the long, flat unpleasantness that I had been trying to avoid. It's funny how on the profile of the ride, it looks like the last 30km or so is downhill, but it is so gradual that it seems flat and you still have to work hard for it. By the time I reached home, I was pretty spent, but quite happy with polishing it off in well under six hours with 1600m of climbing. The evening was spent doing nothing much at all in preparation for the trip to Wellington the following morning.

Sunday was another early start and we loaded up the bikes to head to Wellington for the PNP MTB Club Champs. This was another of those short-format stage races that seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment... Heaps of fun and a good testing ground for a rider's all-round skills. The first part of the day was a cross country race, which was 3 laps of a great Wainui course which climbed (and climbed and climbed) and then descended back to the start to do it all again. My legs felt pretty heavy, but I was well aware of the fact that this was how I was going to feel going into each day of the Cape Epic and I made a little pact with myself that I needed to ride it and treat it like a race, and I did just that. My first lap was a bit slow, and my descending left a lot to be desired, but by the second lap, I had warmed to the course a bit and was able to enjoy the hard climbing followed by the sweet, flowing descent. The Ninja lapped it up effortlessly. I think I just about have my setup dialed now, which I am really happy with.

The afternoon saw us tackle a Super-D race down the B-Line trail, which was certainly not one of my finer moments... The trail consisted of a number of chutes, ruts and steep, off-camber sections which I rode with self-preservation in mind in consideration of my upcoming trip. Our last task for the day was an off-road criterium, which consisted of a short (although by the end, not short enough!) climb that joined back on to a fun, gnarly piece of single track to ride back down, which seemed to get faster and faster each lap (hopefully making up for the climb which seemed to get slower!). We had to ride it for 15 minutes plus 3 laps and it was a real blast and a great workout to top the day off! I came 4th overall in the senior women and then headed off on the long drive home for another good night of sleep.

It turned out to be a pretty stellar week on the bike, and with only a little over a month before I'm sitting on that plane to South Africa, I'm feeling pretty happy with my form. I saw some photos of the Finale Ligure race that will be this year's 24 hour solo world champs, and I'm getting more and more excited about that, too. It's going to be a fantastic trip! It would be remiss of me at this moment to not make mention of the fantastic support I have been given by my employer, Mitre 10 MEGA, who have allowed me to have the time off to take up this once in a lifetime opportunity to race in both South Africa and Italy. Cheers team! Hope I make you real proud!

The Cold, The Climbing, The Views, The Yeti St James Epic

I'd been looking forward to this trip for weeks now. John and I both flew into Christchurch on Friday where we rendezvoused with Kashi and Anthony from Yeti NZ for the trip to Hanmer Springs. After loading up our four bikes and ourselves in the Black Seal bat mobile, we were on our way! I've never been to Hamner Springs before and I was quite taken aback by how stunning the scenery is in the area. It's such a beautiful place.

First things first. When we arrived, we assembled our beautiful Yeti bikes. Registration for the event was an interesting experience. We drove around Hamner Springs for quite some time before we realised we were in the right place for rego and there just wasn't any signage to tell us that... This, we would discover, would be a common theme for the weekend. Number plates and rego packs in hand, we set off home to have a meal and prepare for the race the following day. I was sure to celebrate the fact that this was the first time The Ninja had donned a race plate (I think I was way more excited about this than anyone else!). It was a pretty cool sight having four blinged-up black Yeti bikes in the one place at the same time, and it was a slightly amusing sight to see four bikes lined up in the living room and four riders standing around taking photos of them (like the bikes were "working the camera"). I was also highly amused to discover that the bedroom I was sleeping in had a toilet in the cupboard (good ol' Kiwi baches!)

It was an early start the next morning. The race was due to start at 8am at Lake Tennyson, which was an hour's drive from Hanmer Springs. On the way out there, I was rude enough to stop the whole carload of us twice to jump out for a toilet stop behind grass tussocks... It may have been a combination of nerves, the bumpy road and the fact that I obviously drank too much water that morning... At least I knew I was well-hydrated! I didn't really know what to expect from today. I knew the St James trail was part of the national cycleways project, so I was naive enough to think it was going to be an absolute highway, and tipped myself for a sub-six hour finish. I knew there was close to 2000m of climbing, but that didn't really phase me too much. What did phase me was how cold it was when we got out of the car. I really did feel for the multisporters as I saw them jumping into Lake Tennyson in what felt like 4degree cold at 7.30am... It didn't even look like the start to a race... More like "survival of the swimmer who can deal with the cold the best"... I was glad to stick to the bike for today! It was really tough choosing what gear to start off wearing. We had a huge list of "compulsory kit" so it made sense to try and wear some of that. The rest of it was shoved wherever it would fit in my bulging Camelbak. I ended up opting for an Icebreaker layer under my jersey, which seemed to be the right choice after about half an hour, but lining up on the start line was freezing.

The race briefing wasn't all that reassuring... The race director gave us a really detailed overview of the course, to which I then asked "it is marked though, right"? I was relieved when he said yes, because I hadn't really paid attention to anything else he had said. We set off about 8.30am. There were two mountain bike races, a 65km and a 103km (of course, I was doing the 103km) and we started at the same time. The field was quite small, with all of about 8 of us doing the full 103km. The 103km course was the same as the 65km course, except it had three "side trips" off the main track, which were out and back trips.

As we set off from Lake Tennyson, the air temperature was freezing... My legs were so cold and felt so heavy I could hardly turn the pedals. Erin Greene was the only other female completing the 103km course and I was hoping that I could stick fairly close to her for a good portion of the ride. I started just in front of her and as we climbed the first hill, I managed to stay with her, but as we hit the top of the hill, I lost sight of her. The first descent with such cold legs was really quite sketchy on a loose gravel trail. I just felt like I had no control over how my legs moved on the bike... I ended up in a ditch on the side of the track at one point. I knew Erin was a good technical descender and would have made some time on me that first descent... I just kept working hard and I'd see where that got me. After that, we started to get the odd bit of sun and my legs warmed up a bit. On the odd occasion that I looked up, the scenery was amazing, with dramatic, jagged mountains jutting out of the landscape either side of the valley we were in.

The first side trip we did crossed quite a wide river (river crossings would be a big part of life on the trail today) and then climbed up along a lake and into another valley to a turnaround point. The climbing was hard work on the grass... Very energy and speed-sapping. The good thing about the "out and back" loops was that you could see where you were in relation to the rest of the field, and as it turned out, I was only a couple of minutes behind Erin.

As we rejoined the main trail, we were faced with the headwind again. It was pretty heinous and I really should have had some more foresight to try and stick with another rider to work on rotating through the headwind. But as it turned out, I was on my own, so I just had to deal with it. The second side-trip was really hard work. We were on grass, into a headwind and the trail was pretty poorly marked. We were trying to find tramping markers while we were scooting along on our bikes and there were a number of river crossings. I increasingly found myself slowing down thinking "am I in the right place? Have I missed a marker?". To be honest, it was a bit frustrating, but I was relieved to find the turnaround point with the plate punch on it and then to head back to the main trail with a tail wind. At this point, a sub six hour ride was still on the cards, but when I looked at the total ascent on my Garmin GPS, it told me that we had only climbed 500m in total so far. We were 50km in and I knew that there was supposed to be 2,000m of climbing for the whole race... I tried to put it into the back of my head, but I couldn't help thinking to myself "surely we don't have another 1,500m of climbing to do in the last 50km?" (for the record, yes, we did).

On our third side trip, as I got to the turnaround point, I saw that I was only about 500m behind Erin, which I was super stoked with. It was pretty encouraging and I turned up the pace a notch to see if I could bridge the gap (similarly, I'm sure she turned up the pace a notch to ensure I didn't!). The next 40km were the hardest in the race, but probably had the nicest scenery and trails. I really started to struggle with the river crossings... Being so small, the wind coupled with the current in the rivers conspired to knock me over at any given opportunity, so I found I was being fairly cautious with where I placed my feet. In addition to this, I had to make sure I lifted the bike right out of the water, otherwise the current caught it and sent me tumbling. I reckon I lost a lot of time on the river crossings. I would have to say that the most unusual part of the ride was just before we hit the single track and were riding across this huge expanse of flattened grass. It was the weirdest feeling... You thought you were riding in a straight line, but the grass seemed to suck your wheel any which way it felt... In the end, I found it quicker to tackle on foot with my bike in hand. We then headed up this rather long singletrack climb with amazing vistas back over the valley we had just ridden through. It was such a treat to take time out of huffing and puffing and suffering for five seconds to look at what was around me. We really were in stunning, dramatic countryside. The trail we had been on disappeared through countless rivers towards the horizon at the end of the valley which was guarded by towering mountains on either side which touched the blue sky. It was magic. Once again, I wasn't sure if I was in the right place or going the right way, and as I barreled down the single track on the other side of the climb, I came across a couple of groups of recreational riders who confirmed for me that yes, other racers had come past them (PHEW!). This was the best part of trail that we had ridden, but there was still 30km to go...

After crossing this really cool swing bridge (a camera at this point would have been awesome), I was faced with two rather long, steep climbs. They were hard work, and, quite honesty, they chewed me up and spat me out like I had done no training whatsoever... It was demoralising to say the least. I was hurting real bad, but there was no other option than to just keep pushing on. I pride myself on being a pretty good climber, and these hills taught me a big lesson. My chain was also running super dry and I hadn't brought any lube with me, so I just had to suck it up and deal with it. I took the time at the last aid station to stop and top up with a banana and some extra fluids before setting off down the other side. I considered removing my thermal from under my jersey, but decided that even if I got hot, it was probably good conditioning for what we would encounter in South Africa. The wind had picked up but was actually behind me now... A nice change from the head wind we had endured the entire race up until now. A couple of localised bug communities (best close your mouth when riding through them!), a few more river crossings and one more heinous hill and then I had a tail wind down hill to nail it home (or so I thought)... About 2km from the finish, we were directed off the road and onto a vague farm track (once again, marked with tramping track poles). I had no idea where I was going, most of it wasn't ridable and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pick my way across this farm paddock, all the while with the finish line in sight. It was painful, and probably a bit unnecessary. I finally made my way across the finish line, well outside the 6 hours I had planned on, but with a good day of training in my legs.

There were a lot of tales circulating at the finish line of riders who got lost, or were sent the wrong way, or who had trouble finding markers. In a way, it was a relief that I wasn't the only one who found myself geographically embarrassed on occasion. All in all, the trail was great, and I'd love to ride it again (maybe even as a day trip with some mates). I felt like the side trips were a bit tacked on just to add distance, and didn't really add much value to the ride. It would be really great to see the 103km riders do the same as the 65km riders, but continue on and finish in Hamner Springs. And, as we have established, the course marking and marshalling maybe could have been a little more comprehensive. The sausages at the finish line were AWESOME! (see insert of photo of John enjoying an awesome sausage... A picture says a thousand words!). For a first year event, though, it was a good, fun, hard ride, and with a bit of work, I could see this turning into a really classic "must do" race in a couple of years. The Ninja served me really well. I'm still trying to get the shock pressure right, and I think that I maybe still have the rear a little too hard. In addition to this, I had definately put too much air in my tyres for this race and it made the ride slightly rougher than it really needed to be, but these are minor adjustments. Otherwise, the geometry seems pretty spot on. I had no complaints of pain, and it really is just a pleasure to ride (not to mention it looks bloody cool, too!). That evening, we hit up the Hamner Springs hot pools and chilled out, which was absolute bliss after the day we had. It was actually the first time I have been in my togs this year, and my tan lines no doubt raised a few eyebrows (it looked like I was wearing white shorts and a white t-shirt under my bikini).

Sunday, we had a fairly civilised start and headed off to Nelson to watch the national downhill champs, stopping at a really cool little cafe in Murchison on the way for a second breakfast. Unfortunately, we didn't arrive early enough to head out on a ride, so I got my bike packed up in it's box and then headed up to the track to do some spectating and take some photos (it was an unusual feeling to not be partaking in the actual race side of things!). Afterwards, we headed to the airport and boarded our planes for the trip home. It was a really wicked weekend and it was great to spend some time with Kashi and bounce ideas off him and get advice on the Cape Epic (which he has done twice now). John and I are really proud to be part of the Yeti NZ team, and even moreso when it means we get to hang out with such great people who have such a huge love of the sport of mountain biking (thanks Kashi!!!)

In terms of my own performance on Saturday, I felt pretty happy with my first 60km or so. I was pretty disappointed with how I closed the day out and with my poor form on those final few hills. I guess, though, with these events, it's important to see where you still have work to do. With Cape Epic only 7 weeks away, I will be working on getting in some long rides with hill reps at the end (my idea of fun!). That afternoon, both John and I were pretty shattered and I think it hit pretty close to home the thought that this is the exact sort of ride we will be doing for 8 days straight when we go to South Africa. I can't wait, but to be honest, I'm terrified of it. There will be nowhere to hide as we ride through South Africa, and how we work as a team, and how mentally and physically tough we both are, will determine our fate on the trail. I think John and I make a great team, and I think we're both pretty tough nuts... Bring it on, I say! (Just give me a couple more weeks to get some more hills in my legs!)