First Race in 18 Months? Ouch. June 21, 2011
Posted by Celia in Racing.2 comments
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!
2010 Pre-South’s February 22, 2010
Posted by Celia in Racing.add a comment
A short update:
Yesterday, we had the Pre-South’s BMX Meet at the Dunedin track. I think it’s basically a pre-cursor for the South Island Titles this weekend. There were not many numbers (around 40 I think?), and I was in a category with 16 yrs+ males (including the current NZ number 1 Kurt Pickard) so came last (or 8th, if you want to look at it in a “glass half full” kind of way!). However, I really enjoyed chasing them around the track and could feel myself going faster on sections than I had in the past. I’m really looking forward to the South Islands this weekend! Apparently, there’s 5 in my category (16 yrs+ female) so I’m really looking forward to racing some women. Bring it on! 
In other news, my new XC frame has been built up and I took it out for it’s first ride today (pictures to come once I wash it!). It’s fantastic to ride and I’m really looking forward to spending more time on it once BMX season is over. I think this break for mountainbiking is exactly what I needed to rekindle my enthusiasm for the sport. I can’t wait to get my fitness back up again and head back out on fun mountainbiking adventures!
2010 South Island XC Cup – Round 2 January 17, 2010
Posted by Celia in General, Racing.add a comment
The lack of blog entries in the last month is very much representative of the number of rides I’ve done recently. In fact, I don’t need all 10 fingers to count the total numbers of rides – two BMX club nights, two rides up Nichols Creek, two rides at Bethunes/Forrester, one up to Sullivans Dam and one road ride. Instead of spending my two week “holiday” riding bikes (which I would’ve loved to have done), I spent much of it inside working on house renovations, and entertaining my parents who had decided to visit. But that’s life I suppose, and you’ve got to just get on with it.
Yesterday was the second round of the South Island XC Cup, held at Forrester Park/Bethunes Gully in Dunedin. I had been umming and ahhing about whether to race throughout the week. Up until Friday evening, I was still sitting on the fence – the main reason being that I’d never gone into a “Nationals” race feeling so undercooked. For the past couple of seasons, I had a coach (thanks Lisa!) and a few months build-up to the Nationals series. This season, with no training and comparatively less riding in general, I knew that I was going to be in a whole different world of pain.
The main reason I decided to race was because the course was so fun, I knew it quite well, and I’ve never raced on it before, despite it being on my local tracks. The last time we had a Nationals round on that course in Dunedin was back in 2007. They still had a Sport category back then I was intending on giving it a go. However, I crashed on the road the day before the race (I was riding out to Signal Hill with the intention of spectating the downhill) and ended up sliding my hip across the road and bruising my ribs in the process. (Scotty got a speeding ticket on his way to find me because I sounded so distraught on the phone.. but that’s another story.)
So, back to the race report. I had a great start for once – I got the holeshot and was first into the singletrack – quite possibly the highlight of my race! I guess all the gate start practice at BMX has paid off! Unfortunately, BMX races are less than a minute long, which meant that I only had a minute’s worth of intensity in my legs. So, for the next 10 minutes following, I was passed by most of the womens field. Ah well. It was fun way to start!
The course consisted of two “major” climbs, each around 5 minutes of solid up (well, at my pace anyway), and both followed by decent downhill sections – nice, flowy singletrack with some little drops and technical bits thrown into the mix. I didn’t have the leg strength or fitness to attack the climbs, so was spinning up them (still breathing hard though!), knowing that I would be rewarded when I got to the tops. I managed to pass one of the women on the first downhill (after she’d passed me on the uphill), then spent the rest of the race determined not to get passed by her again.
As I came through the start/finish for the first time, I saw on the scoreboard that I was coming second in Senior Women, which I was quite surprised at. OK Celia. Let’s see if we can make it through the next two laps without being passed by anyone behind me!
The second lap was a bit faster than the first, because it was without the little start loop, and I was settling into a bit more of a rhythm. The uphills still put me into my little box of hurt, and the downhills still left me grinning at the end. Lather, rinse, and repeat for the third lap, adding in some calf/quad/hamstring cramps to keep it interesting.
In the end, I managed to hold onto my 2nd place in Senior Women – 8 minutes down from 1st, and 10 minutes ahead of 3rd. I was relatively happy with that, considering the lack of riding (and racing) of late. My average HR was 187 (about standard for an XC race), with a max of 194 (a bit lower than usual). I’m glad I decided to enter, although having a bit more fitness and endurance would have made it a lot less painful. The tracks were in excellent condition, considering the numbers of riders they’d had over them in the past few days, and the weather we’ve had for the past couple of weeks – cheers to the crew at Mountainbiking Otago for building and maintaining such wicked tracks!
So, what’s next for me? Well, to change tack slightly, I’ve entered the Regional BMX Champs in Alexandra at the end of the month, and the South Island BMX Champs (in Dunedin) at the end of February. So for the next six weeks or so, I’ll be focusing on BMX. I don’t expect to do well in either of these events, but I do like the challenge of learning how to ride smoother and faster, and racing against different groups of people. And at the very least, it should be an interesting learning experience!
Kaitangata Black Gold Trail 2009 November 15, 2009
Posted by Celia in Racing.add a comment
Last weekend, my weekly womens MTBing group headed out to Kaitangata. Where is Kaitangata you say? Well, it’s a small town in South Otago about an hour from Dunedin, and is where my lovely husband is from (and is happy to admit!). But my family connection wasn’t why we were out there; we were actually checking out the trails that were being used for the following weekend’s Black Gold Trail MTB race.
Despite the clash with another MTB event (the Coastal Classic), we still had a dozen or so women show up for last Sunday’s “pre-ride”. And after a couple of hours of riding around the tracks, which consisted of a mixture of gravel roads, 4wd forestry roads, and singletrack, I had decided I was going to enter the MTB race this weekend.
A few of the women out on the ride..
Extreme self-portrait taken while riding along a gravel road.
With that decision made, we thought we’d make a weekend of it since Scotty’s parents own a crib (bach/beach-house – whatever you want to call it!) at Measly Beach, around 10-15 minutes from Kaitangata. A couple of friends also wanted to do the race, so we all headed over to the crib on Friday night, had a late tea, and “prepared” for the big race (i.e., drank cider and watched TV till late).
We arrived in Kaitangata on Saturday morning, picked up our registration packs, and sifted around until the start of the race. I headed out for a warm-up ride (which, as it turns out, wasn’t particularly effective), and pondered how I would go in my first MTB race of the season. Would my knee handle being pushed at “race pace”? How would I feel on the uphills with a winter of not much riding? Could I possibly beat X, Y, and Z? I was fairly happy with my decision to ride the shorter 21.5km course instead of the 45km course, where I foreseed a great amount of suffering to be had.
At 9:30, it was time for the race to start. The first section was around a km or so on a sealed road and I thought I had quite a good position towards the back of the bunch that had formed at the front. We were flying down that road at a great speed of knots until we had to make a right-hand corner onto a gravel road. Being at the back, by the time I turned the corner, the bunch had already surged off, my quads solidified into blocks of [insert something solid and blocky here], and I felt like I was moving backwards on the gravel road as people behind me began to pass. Yup, I guess I’d blown the start by going a bit too hard off the line!
The course climbed up a gravel road for a while until it turned to a 4wd forestry road. I was passed by three junior riders who often come along on the Monday night womens rides. It seemed that they were casually (but speedily) pedalling up with no effort required. Meanwhile, I was suffering on the uphills with no speed/intensity/hillclimbing training under my belt, until we hit the singletrack. Here, I joined a convoy of riders going through the track at a comfortable slightly-faster-than-walking pace and I got a chance to catch my breath while simultaneously riding carefully around people who got off/fell off in front of me.
After exiting the singletrack at around the 5km mark, the next 10km or so was all on gravel roads. I decided that instead of my usual approach of pushing a bigger gear up the hills, I would try spinning – it turns out that it was easier on the knee and I was actually travelling faster up the hills! Ahead, I could see the three juniors riding together and I pretty much stayed in that position for the rest of the race – I wasn’t gaining on them, but I wasn’t losing too much ground either.
Trying to not look completely knackered on the uphill.
Photo: Richard Schofield Photography
Somewhere between the 15-20km mark (I’m not sure exactly because my speedo stopped working at the 8km mark and I pulled the display off my bike in frustration because a reading of 0 km/h on the uphills wasn’t particularly motivating), the gravel turned to 4wd road again, and we crossed a tarseal road to head over to the tracks on the other side. Here, it was an undulating climb to the final pieces of singletrack. I had ridden the singletrack twice the previous weekend so was looking forward to its fast flowiness (and the fact that the end of the singletrack signalled almost the end of the race!). I suddenly found my legs again and the rest of the course was a fast, fun ride swooping through a 1.5km flattish piece of singletrack, then a fun descent towards the road. Onto the road and into the biggest gear possible for a hard and fast pedal to the finish in 1 hour 28 minutes.
What I find most impressive about small-town events is the effort that the community goes to to make the event run smoothly. The start/finish line was at the local rugby clubrooms. Included in our entry fee was a free lunch (sandwich, piece of fruit, and a slice of cake) which you could see the people in the kitchen working away making as the race went on. The bar in the clubrooms was also open (with $7 jugs – and yes, I did have a couple of beers while waiting around for prizegiving). There was both a coffee cart and an ice-cream truck (with the cutest chocolate cats!), a raffle to win a bike or dinner for two at the local pub, and a muffin-baking competition! Not to mention all the people who marshalled, timed, and built the tracks. What a great community effort!
There was a wee bit of a wait for prize-giving because in addition to the 21.5km MTB race, there was a 45km MTB race, a half-marathon, and a duathlon (21.5km run + 45km MTB!) on at the same time. Kudos to those who did the longer-course options! At prizegiving, I was very surprised to learn that I won the Open Women category, and was only a minute or two behind the juniors I was chasing – sweet! Massive congrats to Anja who won the 45km MTB race on a cyclocross bike!
Between the end of the race and prize-giving, I had a bit of time for reflection. In hindsight, it was probably unrealistic of me to think that I could ride at the speed and intensity as I was last season. I was really struggling to breathe on the uphills but the next race I’m planning on doing isn’t until January so I’ve got a couple of months to try and get some fitness back. On the upside, my knee didn’t give me any trouble during the race, so the gym rehab stuff must be working – yay!
All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend. After the race, we headed back to the crib, cooked up a BBQ for an early tea, and went for a wander down the beach. Today, we headed back to Kai and rode the last few pieces of singletrack again then headed back home. It was good to head away from Dunedin for a weekend but it’s also nice being home. It’s not too long until our next trip however – we’re off to the 10th anniversary Vorb Queen Charlotte Walkway MTBing trip in a fortnight. It will be our first time on the QCW and I’m really looking forward to our road-trip north to such a beautiful part of the country.
3 News Coverage of the 2008 National Hillclimb Champs August 12, 2009
Posted by Celia in Racing.add a comment
Thought I’d share this.. you can see me (and hear my heavy breathing) around 1/3 in..
3 News > Video > 3 Sport > Mountain biking: NZ champs kick off with gut busting up-hill
Super Jet Dinosaur Fun Monkeys! June 22, 2009
Posted by Celia in Racing.add a comment
That was our team-name for the Southland MTB Club’s BNZ 8 hour Mad Winter Enduro race held on Saturday in Invercargill. (From the Simpsons for those who are a tad confused). After the race a couple of weekends ago, I was happy to enter as a team and not solo – there was hardly anywhere you could recover on course, which would have made a solo effort extremely difficult, gears or no gears!
Scotty and I headed down to Invercargill after work on Friday and stayed the night at the same campground (we’d just decided to head down that day and couldn’t be bothered finding another accommodation option because this one was cheap and close) – needless to say, we won’t be returning for a third time! (Who says that humans are capable of one-trial learning?!..).
Saturday morning came around and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t raining or snowing (as forecasted earlier on in the week). In fact, the day turned out quite nice – it wasn’t too chilly, there was no rain, and the sun even popped out a few times! We arrived onsite a bit later than we’d have liked (cf. previous paragraph about the campground!), and found ourselves an area to set up our tent away from the main tent village, but fortuitously placed next to a couple of other Dunedin-based teams. Dunedin Reprazent!!
(me looking all serious-like at race briefing..)
Our four person mixed team consisted of myself, Scotty, and friends Ash and Sal. Ash and Sal had done a wee bit of riding down in Invercargill before but hadn’t done much XC racing. We were out there to have fun though so it was a nice social vibe, making for a change from some of the other team relay events I’d entered before. We nominated Ash to head off on our first lap, and we settled in and waited for him to come in.
Some 40-odd minutes later when a few kids had come around from finishing their first lap and Ash hadn’t come back, we realised something had gone wrong. Someone from the team next to ours said he had a mechanical issue out on course. A few minutes later when he finally came round, we could see what the issue was – his stem bolts attaching the handlebars were completely loose and he couldn’t steer or brake! Scotty headed out on our second lap and Ash set about fixing up his bike. Rider reports from the teams next door were that the course was a lot harder than the 12 hour course for Naseby and that there was no room for recovery – sounds like it was similar to the course from a couple of weekends back.
I was the third rider and after a fairly slow transition (I had to find my multi-tool because if I didn’t have it on me, no doubt I would have had a mechanical issue like Ash’s!), I headed out on course. The first third or so was similar to the course from the other weekend. But I knew what to expect so settled into a pattern and tackled the flat corners as best as I could. There were a few 4wd sections, then into some new tracks that I hadn’t ridden before and gosh they were FUN! Super jet dinosaur monkey fun even! Nice and flowy and technical enough to keep me guessing what was around the next corner or over the next “caution” warning sign. I even got both wheels off the ground on one section! Weeee!! The last 5-10 minutes were a bit pedally (well, the whole course was pedally really) and longer than I’d expected. The fastest riders had come in around the 31-32 minute mark on the first lap so I was expecting to be out there for around 40-odd minutes. As I crossed the start/finish line, I saw that my time for the first lap was 40:11 – sweet. That wasn’t too bad, considering I probably spent around 15 seconds at the start trying to find my multi-tool! Average HR: 189, Max HR: 197. Hmmm hard effort out on the lap eh!
Another rotation around our riders and I was off again for my second lap. That went a lot better as I knew what to expect. Less caution around the “caution” signs and faster on the 4WD. I was even smiling on the second lap – what a change from the race two weekends ago! Vrmmm vrrrmm vrmmm! Yup.. I even made motorbike noises outloud in places. Second lap time: 38:24, Average HR: 191, Max HR: 198. Weeeee!
I came in on my second lap just before 4pm and we figured out that I might have time for a third lap, depending on how long the others took. Sal came back a bit slower than her first lap time (her chain got jammed between the cranks and frame and took herself and a helpful rider a good 10 minutes to sort out). By then it was getting a bit dark and time to set up the lights. Between us, we had four SLA batteries.. yet for some reason, only two of them were working! Argh. Ash took off with one good one and Scotty got set up with the other one. When Ash got back, we figured there was no point in me heading out for a third lap (wouldn’t have made the 7pm finish time) so we set about packing up the tent. Scotty was pretty stoked when he came in on the final lap and everything was all packed up. Lucky him!
I stopped off to check out the lap times and was quietly stoked that my second lap was the fastest one that our team did – our team placed 10th out of 17 teams, but the placing wasn’t important. I had fun out there and it was great actually enjoying the event. It was incredibly well-run for a first-time event and I hope they do it again next year. We decided to head out on the road back to Dunedin before it got too late so didn’t stay for prizegiving, but pretty sure R&R Sport team FUBAR took out the 8 hr mixed team category and solo R&R rider Mickey Fan did well in the solo category.
Next event might be a 20km roadie time-trial next weekend but we’ll see what the week brings. I might work on my trail karma and help do some trail-building next weekend instead. In either case, I’m back to enjoying the bike again and it feels good.
Photos: Lionel Benjamin – check out the rest of his photos from the event here.
2009 Milton Jailbreak May 18, 2009
Posted by Celia in Racing.1 comment so far
Throughout the past week, I was umming and ahhing about doing the Milton Jailbreak (35km or 50km options), or Round 2 of the Dunedin winter multisport series (2.5km run, 15km mtb, 5km run). Up until Saturday afternoon, I still hadn’t decided on what event I was going to do. By Saturday evening (as we ate far too much food at a potluck dinner), I had finally made up my mind – the 35km “Rec” option at the Milton Jailbreak.
The main reason behind my logic in doing the shorter course of the two – My right knee. Turns out doing a 12 hour race solo on a singlespeed isn’t good on your knees.. especially since I might have already had issues with the tracking of my kneecap but have never noticed it before. Around 25km into our 35km ride last week, it began to play up again, and an attempt at a run during the week started to hurt as well. After some interweb banter on Vorb (where the Vorbii told me to see a physio), I texted my friend Ash Rohloff who runs Body Logic Active Rehabilitation in Dunedin.
Apparently it’s something to do with the right IT band pulling my kneecap outwards as I straighten my knee. An incredibly trustworthy internet diagnosis tells me it’s patellofemoral syndrome (but don’t hold me to that.. or ask me how to pronounce it!). I saw Ash on Saturday and he kindly pummeled my right thigh and hip with his arms and showed me a couple of stretches to do. Hopefully, by doing the right thing (i.e., me following instructions and actually stretching), we can get this sorted out so it doesn’t bother me too much in the future. Fingers crossed eh.
So, back to the race report. I woke up various times on Saturday night to hear the rain falling on our roof, and was hoping the weather would be nicer in the morning. Sunday morning rolled by and it was still raining. Ah well. We decided to head down to Milton anyway and if the race was cancelled, to head another 15 minutes further south to Balclutha to visit Scotty’s parents. As we were driving out of Dunedin, the weather looked like it was getting better. By the time we hit Milton, we could even see patches of blue sky! Yippee! Looks like the race was on!
The race began with a mass start and about 2km of fairly flat gravel road. Then the climbing began.. and lots of it! In fact, although the gravelled foresty roads could perhaps be described as covering “rolling terrain”, it was certainly hard work! The first half hour or so, I felt like was coughing and spluttering like a chain smoker (apologies to any smokers I offend) as my lungs tried to get used to breathing in cold air and being pushed at “race pace”, which I hadn’t done for a few months. About 45 minutes in, I finally found my legs and my breathing had settled a bit. The terrain may have actually become more “rolling” by that stage although I was beginning to lose track of how many uphills I’d been up! I was keeping an eye out on my speedo for the distance covered, occasionally checking out the view, but in general, felt like I was going pretty hard (hur hur..) the whole race, and didn’t feel like I was taking any breaks throughout. In a way, that was what made it a good race for me – I felt like I was giving it all I could for pretty much the entire course. I was quite surprised to turn onto a sealed road at the 25km mark – into the biggest gear possible and away I went. I’ll admit I drafted behind a couple of guys who were doing the 50km course (cheers guys!) for a couple of km, until we turned onto another gravel road with a 3-4km stretch to the finish and I couldn’t keep up any more. The goal for the final few kms was to keep going as hard as I could and not get passed!. I was very relieved when I crossed the finish line and achieved that.
So all up, a pretty good race. Although I’m not as strong on the uphills as I was over summer, and my level of fitness is a bit (a lot?!) lower, it’s quite cool getting out there and putting your best effort into something and come away feeling pretty happy with the how the race went in general. I was the first woman home in the 35km race, and am keeping an eye out on the website for results to see how I placed overall.
Cheers to the Milton Karate Club for putting on a great race – even though they aren’t mountainbikers, they run the event as their major fundraiser – how awesome is that?! Congrats also to R&R Sport rider Tony Hogg who won the 50km event (and passed me at a great speed of knots on his 29er on an uphill!).
Next race: Round 2 of the Southland MTB Club XC Winter series on the 7th June. (I have a theory that if I put it on my blog, then I’m more likely to commit and actually do it!).
Upcoming winter events.. May 8, 2009
Posted by Celia in Racing.add a comment
As we get into the colder, darker days and nights in the depths of winter, I begin to ponder how much riding I will actually do. So, nothing like a few events to keep the motivation up!
Here’s a few that I’m eyeing up over the next few months:
I hear it’s long, and it’s muddy. The former probably suiting me more than the latter, but I suppose there’s only one way to learn how to ride in the mud and that’s to do it more often! I’m apprehensively looking forward to this next weekend!
2009 Naseby 12 Hour Challenge April 26, 2009
Posted by Celia in Racing.add a comment
Ahh the Naseby 12 hour race. I’ve been looking forward to riding this again since I rode a couple of laps back in 2005 at the first Naseby 12 hour event. As I ummed and ahhed about whether I should join a team or go solo, the word got out that all the team entries were full. Bugger! However, I emailed the organisers and was lucky to get a spot in the 12 hour solo singlespeed category.
This was a month out from the race. One week later, we finally got around from picking up my singlespeed from the basement of a friend’s place, which left me with three weeks of singlespeed practice. This consisted of commuting to and from work (about 20 minutes there and back on the flat), half a dozen short (1 hour-ish) rides on the local tracks, and a couple of hours in Naseby over Easter. Combined with a couple of half hour runs, and a 2 hour road ride one weekend, and that was the total of my training for the event.
So Thursday night was spent loading stuff up in the car (Scotty) and baking bacon and egg pie (me) for the race. We drove up to Naseby on Friday evening after work (a couple of hours drive from Dunedin), and eventually found the place we were staying at – a 3 bedroom holiday home that a friend of Scotty’s had rented out for the weekend. Friday evening was then spent setting up the tent site and sorting out my food for the race:
12 cups of food, plus a couple of extra containers of pasta and pikelets (in separate containers of course) later, it was 11:30pm and time to go to bed. Zzzzzzz..
Saturday morning arrived too soon. I had a very sweet breakfast of porridge, jam on a bagel, and a couple of doughnuts, and we headed off to the camp village (based in the local Naseby camp-ground) in time for the 8:30am briefing. The briefing finished with a minute’s silence for ANZAC day (a nice touch I thought) and it was off to put the bike in a transition area, and back to the start line for a Le Mans start.
I had two goals for the race: to ride 12 laps (conservatively estimated at around an hour per lap, which included time for stops – I was riding around 40 minute laps when we practised the course over easter), and to make sure that I was fed and hydrated properly, given my tendency to under-eat and drink in longer distance events. I wasn’t treating it as a “race” as such, because in reality, I would have been much better suited to a geared bike for this sort of event, but the challenge of singlespeeding around for as long as I could was strangely appealing.
So.. back to the race report: I’d conveniently put myself towards the back of the group for the start, which was probably quite fortunate because apparently a couple of people went down and were trampled on off the start line! Ouch! The run was a few hundred metres through all the tentsites, with a few bottlenecks where the course went through some singletrack, and by the time I reached my bike, most of the field had gone. This suited me fine however, because the first km or so was pretty flat, and with my 32:20 gearing (roughly equivalent to the middle chainring in the front, and the fourth easiest gear at the back), I wasn’t exactly going at race pace!
The 10km course was a mixture of open sections (4wd roads, water race) and singletrack, with not too many steep climbs but a few gradual ones and a few pinch ones thrown in. In terms of competitors, there were over 700 people all up, with just under 30 solo men, 4 solo women, and a separate category for solo singlespeeders, of which there were 9 of us entered – 8 guys.. and me.
I’ll cut to the chase: I discovered this weekend why someone invented gears!
While the first few laps were fine, by around the fourth hour, I was beginning to feel a bit sore. Not suprising because I hadn’t done a long ride in a while, with the longest races I’d ever done being Karapoti (just under 4 hours) and 6 hour solo at the Taupo Day Nighter in 2008. On every lap, I was stopping briefly at the tentsite (I was basing myself out of Scotty’s team’s site) to stretch the back a bit, and grab another cup of food, and a bottle every second lap. After the fourth hour, the stops got a bit longer – from less than a minute to around 5-15 minutes. The longest stop was around the 6 hour mark, where I got a quick leg massage/stretch from one of our support crew. By that stage, my knees were beginning to play up. Not majorly, but I could definitely feel the effects of pushing that gear up the uphill sections.
From about that point on, things slowly got worse. By the 10th lap, I was walking most of the steeper uphill sections and even pedalling along the flat/slight uphill gradient sections was quite sore. A five minute sit-down at the campsite, and I gritted my teeth and headed out again to see how the 11th lap went. Very slowly and sorely was the answer. I could even hear my right kneecap clicking with each pedalstroke. Towards the top of a nasty climb (known as Nipple Hill because of the rather large uh.. formation? at the top), I came across a solo guy who looked like he was in pain and leaning up against his bike. Myself and a couple of others stopped. I grabbed the bike and the others sat him down on the ground. Sounds like his legs had cramped up on him in a major fashion. Ouch. The other riders had the situation under control so I headed off thinking that I didn’t want to end up like that in this race.
At this stage, I knew I had to pull the pin before I did any serious damage to myself. But still, I was determined to get in that 12th lap. It was just after 5pm when I pulled into the campsite at the end of my 11th lap. I sat down for a bit, wandered off to use the bathroom, and put my lights on in case I got stuck out there when it got dark. After some encouraging words from Scotty with some advice to walk anything I couldn’t ride up, I set off on my final lap. It was a very slow one, and by that stage, my left leg was largely doing all the work because any force through my right leg was hurting my right knee. A lot of walking on this lap, but I was OK with that. I just wanted to finish it without hurting myself any more. As I crossed the start/finish line for the last time just before the 9 hour mark, I felt a sense of relief as I got off my bike. A sure sign that it was the right decision to make.
I sat around our campsite for the next three hours watching people ride by. I was quite gutted I didn’t get any night laps in, but by that stage, I was having trouble standing up from a sitting position, and bending my knees while walking. Any more laps would have been no fun whatsoever, and given I wasn’t doing this race “seriously”, what would have been the point if I wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it?
Still, I was a bit disappointed with myself. I never would’ve picked my knees to be what stopped me in the end since I’ve never had knee problems in races in the past. In fact, if I was to put money on it, I would’ve put it on lower back pain, or quad cramps. Neither of those were much of a problem in the end. However, as people have pointed out to me, I’m not used to singlespeeding for such a long duration, and have never ridden for 8-9 hours either!
However, I have learnt a lot from the experience, and overall I came 8th out of 9 singlespeeders, and did just as many laps as the solo woman in 3rd place (will have to wait for the results to see if I completed my 12 laps before or after her though). I’m glad I made my target of 12 laps (in 9 hours instead of the full 12), and I learnt a bit about what foods were good and not so good to have on the bike. I don’t think I’ll ever do 12 hours solo on a singlespeed again, unless I get ALOT of singlespeed riding in. It really does beat your body up when you’re riding one for so long! It probably didn’t help that I was on a hardtail after riding full-suspension for a couple of years either.
I was very grateful for the support and encouragement I got from spectators and riders throughout the event. It’s quite a nice feeling when you’re riding through the tent village with people calling out your name. Also when you’re struggling on an uphill and someone calls out “good on ya..” or “you’re doing great”. I was wearing a new South Park riding top with “Oh man! You guys suck!” written on the back, which got a few laughs from the riders and spectators. Thanks to the Mountainbiking Otago crew for putting on a great event (as per usual). I’ll be back next year to race it properly on my Superlight. Finally, thanks to Scotty and his team, the Flying Tepulis (apparently Tepuli is Aztec for penis!), for supporting me throughout the event.
Congrats to Tony Hogg who won the male solo category with 24 laps, Hannah Thorne who won the female solo category in 20 laps, and Mickey Fan who won the singlespeed solo category in 20 laps. Legends.
My stats for the race if anyone’s interested:
Total ride time: 8 hours 6 minutes, 12 seconds
Distance: 118.4km
Average speed: 14.6km/h
Max speed: 48.4km/h
Average heartrate: 157 (pretty low for me..)
Max heartrate: 190
Calories burned: 4689 calories (19693.8 kj)
Time to hang the singlespeed up for a couple of weeks (at least!).
PS: If anyone has any photos of me from the event, please email me at psychavoc@gmail.com. Cheers!
