First Race in 18 Months? Ouch. June 21, 2011

After spectating at Round 1 of the Bike Otago XC Winter Series last month with no Cadence-related meltdowns, I wondered whether it was possible to work around Cadence and enter Round 2. Well, guess there was only one way to find out, and that was to give it a go!

Cadence woke at 5am on the morning of the race, so after giving her a feed, Scotty kindly took over babycaring duties to allow me a couple more precious hours of sleep. At 8:30 I was feeling relatively more human so I asked Scotty to give my bike a last-minute check and load it up on the car. I got changed into my (slightly tighter fitting) riding kit, located various accessories in amongst the boxes they were still in from our house move a couple of weekends ago, and by 10am, we were ready to head out to Wakari Creek. A rather tired Cadence fell asleep in the car on the way there, so at least the baby was not of concern at that particular point in time!

I was pleasantly surprised to see so many people at the Wakari Creek carpark, all ready to race. It’s good to see a good turn-out for a local event, especially in winter!  I opted for the easiest of the three grades on offer – 1.5 laps of the course for Rec grade. Given I can count the number of times I’ve been for rides this year on two hands, I figured that it would be enough riding for me, thank you very much!

After race briefing, we began with a warm-up ride on the road to the start line. By the time I got there, I was right at the back of the group, which suited me fine given how tired I was already feeling from the ride to the start! “5, 4, 3, Go!” said Greg, and it was on.

Having not done much riding up Wakari Creek since the tracks had been extended, I wasn’t quite sure where we were going, but followed the crowd. Looking ahead, I groaned slightly as I saw that we were heading up on a slight incline. Yes, it was very slight.. but still an incline, and my legs weren’t liking it! I told myself earlier that I wasn’t out to race as such, just to participate. But when I noticed I had two young boys right behind me, I was determined to not let them get past me!

After the slight rise, there was a wider flat section before entering the singletrack descent. My new Santa Cruz Superlight worked a treat and was just as responsive and fun to ride as my old one (with the added bonus of being 3 lbs lighter, although the same cannot be said about the rider!). The track then veered into a new section (well, to me anyway), which was flowy in places and pedally but not too bad in others. Before Cadence, I’d normally just put the bike in a bigger gear and stomp that around, but my legs didn’t have the strength so ended up changing down a few and spinning instead. I passed the start/finish line at the end of my start (half) lap around 15 minutes in. Time for lap 2!

Usually, I would treat the first lap of a race as a warm-up and as I warmed up, I would get stronger and faster. However, I guess this only works when one has been riding fairly regularly because by the time I had “warmed up”, I was already tired! As a result, the second lap was taken at a fairly conservative pace. Looking back down the track as it snaked its way up to the top, I could see the boys dropping a little bit further behind me, but I didn’t want to drop the pace too much and be passed by them! The rest of the lap was nothing to write home about, but I was enjoying being out on the bike, although I found myself wondering what Cadence was up to and whether she was OK without me (yes, sad I know, but when you spend almost every moment with a wee babe who relies on you for food, it’s hard to put her out of your mind).

I was fading quite a bit on the second lap and ended up drinking most of my bottle – a feat unheard of before for me! In fact, I think I drank more in this wee race than I did in the whole of Karapoti (50km) in 2008. As I crossed the line at 39 minutes, I stumbled off the bike and sat on the ground muttering something along the lines of “childbirth was easier than that!”. OK perhaps a bit of an exaggeration in hindsight, but I was feeling pretty damn shattered for the little riding I had done! Never was I more grateful to be passed a hot-dog by Greg. Nom nom nom!

Upon reflection, I wasn’t too sure what I expected from my first race in 18 months (my last race was Round 2 of the South Island XC Cup series in January 2010). It was a bit of a reality check for how much fitness and strength I’d lost, but also was good to see that I still enjoyed the competitive aspects of it. Entering the Recreation grade was a good call as it feels like I’m back to the drawing board and at the level I was when I started riding in 2003. Although I suppose my technical skills have improved slightly since then! I think that finding time to get in some more regular riding will be the key to getting more enjoyment out of racing. But despite how tired and slow I felt, it was good to be out there again. Bring on Round 3 next month!