Racing? Sort of.

On Sunday I did my first "race" in 18 months. It was the final of the CSC's Short Track series and it was so fun. Held on Siberia Flat on Kennedy's Bush it was 20 minutes of lung searing, leg smashing awesome and I was super stoked with how I went. And when I say how I went I don't mean where I got in the race (I was lapped by a child), but how my body felt during and after. This was the first time in aaaagggeesss that I really pushed my body as hard as I could and on the start line I didn't really know what would happen. In fact I was quite prepared to pull the pin if things felt bad. I certainly didn't want to send myself back to being bed ridden.
I had a great ride at Bottlelake with a mate on Saturday and that gave me the confidence to push during the race. Saturday was a great blast with lots of hard out sprints and then some skills practice on the skinnies. It seems that my loss of fitness has meant that I'm now riding inside my skillset so that I'm actually feeling more confident on the bike than ever before. I feel I have control over what my bike is doing now, rather than just being along for the ride some of the time. And that's how it was on Sunday at the race.
The singletrack flew by. Andre at Hub Cycles has recently tuned up my suspension and my bike was running like a dream. It was super responsive through the singletrack, flowed down the bumpy down hill (even when I was blasting brake-free) and pedalled great back up the hill. I was aiming for 3 laps in my 20 mins so was really happy to easily get 4. In fact I think I might have almost squeezed 5 in if I hadn't stopped to help a fallen rider at the start for a couple of minutes.
And now I'm off to Hanmer to ride sweet sweet singletrack for 3 days, weather permitting. I have to say, looking out at the storm that's raging right now, there may be a lot of sitting in hot pools and doing homework and less riding than I would like.

What’s more fun than racing?

The Christchurch Singletrack Club had its club champs on Saturday and it was a fantastic Mexican singletrack fiesta with a race for everyone. Not only was I racing, but I was also helping with setting up, timing, and running other races. The weather forecast was ominous so I was glad to be attired in a nice heavy poncho and warm cowboy hat. Unfortunately my moustache was horribly uncomfortable and kept falling off. Stupid thing. Luckily the day dawned beautifully and we managed to get everything set up in the morning sun. Soon the whippets were arriving, cheesey moustaches, both real and stuck or drawn on, fluro ponchos and other Mexican paraphernalia arrayed about their persons. It was most amusing. I was doing the computer timing for the expert (Rapido) race and having never done it before I was feeling slightly nervous. Luckily it was easy and fun and I loved every second. I was particularly enjoying watching one the battle between Slim and JD, but unfortunately I had to leave my post before all the racers finished as I was racing in the next race and needed to get the circulation going in my legs again after sitting in the chilly southerly wind for over an hour.

Riding down Zane’s was great fun, but I was feeling very apprehensive about climbing up the 4wd and the Pines 3 times. I’ve never yet managed to ride all the way to the top without stopping and I’ve only ever managed to ride 2 laps of the course. This was going to hurt a lot. All too soon we were off and I spun up the 4wd track as well as I could. My lungs felt pretty rough by halfway up the 4wd drive track and I was fully in survival mode right from the start. I kept going and really loved the new Pines extension and the fabulous “never-ending berm”. Then it was back to the climbing. My legs felt pretty good and up I went, winding through the switchbacks and getting my heart rate under control on the flatter sections. Soon I was at Rhymes with Orange and being roundly heckled for my feeble pace. Oh well, that’s one of the draw backs of being a mouthy heckler and a popular and well loved blogger. Up into Goodie Gum Drops for the first time ever and it was a fun little bit of track and finally I was heading down hill.

Back through Zanes and I was loving this bit of track. I knew I was catching the guy in front of me and stretching a gap to those behind me, but I knew I’d need it because just like at Hanmer my back was spasming. Back onto the 4wd track and there was no way I could put the power down I needed and I stopped for a second and tried to loosen my back up. I trudged up the 4wd track with my bike feeling pretty shit, but then rode all the singletrack of the Pines, although I needed a few breathers along the way. I was glad the hecklers had moved on, I was not in the zone at all and probably wouldn’t have handled it very well. I got great support going across the finish line, but I felt like fraud. Down Zanes again and I actually wasn’t loving it, the thought of the last climb was making me feel sick. I hit the last climb and hit the wall. I’d only eaten a muesli bar in the previous 3 hours and I bonked big time struggling to push the bike up the hill.
My legs felt like spaghetti and the marshals had even left. I wanted to pull the pin, but the idea of DNF was completely hideous. I had to walk up a couple of the higher switchbacks as downhillers bombed down beside me. I struggled on and was determined to not look like death on wheels when I popped out of the trees. Up Goodie Gum Drops for the last time and reaching the top was a huge relief. I was so glad the climbing was over I did a couple of hucks on the descent, and hammed it up over the line. Then I collapsed at my car and drank 500mls of replace.

I felt like crap, but I got changed into my lovely poncho again and scoffed my free pie and felt like a new person. Then it was time for the singlespeed race, where I had to help with the “activities” the riders needed to complete between laps. The costumes on display in this race were fantastic, and watching the crazies dash up a hill to find a plant pot, then run down, put it on the end of a 3m pole and spin round with it on their heads was so funny that my mood was transformed. Then I proceeded to the table of Tabasco and helped the lovely Sarah set up the plates of nachos and beans, which the riders would have to eat ALL of sans hands before proceeding. The first two riders arrived, Dayle on his sexy new ti Singular Pegasus. I feel very privileged to have been allowed to stroke such a divine creature, and Nick Bushlove close behind. 

Unfortunately these two finely tuned athletes were not very good at following instructions and after a rather token effort the need for the race saw them leaving with their plates still full of food. Not good. Not long after Ollie arrived and with great encouragement from his lovely mother, who obviously raised him right to finish all his food, Ollie got the whole lot down. More racers rolled in, including young Anton on his insane 10” kids bike, and cleaned their plates amidst much complaining and much laughter from those of us in the vicinity. After some serious conferring amongst the race officials it was decided that the two leading banditoes had managed to save a significant amount of time with their wiley ways and they would have to be punished. So it was with a heavy heart I was sent to stop them before the end and ensure they eat their nachos. The controversy was great and the outrage was evident, especially when Ollie sailed past Dayle and Nick as they wolfed down their nachos. Nick took off like a man possessed to reel Ollie back in and almost had him on the line, but Ollie’s skinsuit gave him that tiny edge over the fluro poncho and he maintained a slim lead over the line.

There followed an epic prizegiving where I actually got a prize for getting 2nd in my age group for my race! OMG! I also scored a lovely box of Barkers jams and chutneys. Om nom nom. It was a great day and for me the best part was being involved in running the day. It was great being part of such a fun community and providing an event that had something for everyone. I missed it, but there was even a fantastic children’s race which saw loads of kids having a great time and giving it their all. Although I’m not sure whether the presence of death in their midst was fun for them or not.

 

Thanks heaps to Rebekah and Craig and the CSC, and to my lovely supporters. Now I’ve been laid low with a flu and ideas of racing the night racing series are drifting away and I’m considering just hitting the roadie and training for some mid-winter madness which I’m really not qualified to take part in.

Short Track Lessons

Sunday was the final short track race for the year, and under a gloomy grey sky it was the funnerest (yes, that’s a word) one yet. I was hoping to finally break that magic 5 lap mark in my 20 allotted minutes and not to feel like it was time for lung replacement surgery after the race. Amazingly I achieved both these goals and now feel qualified to pass on the important lessons I learnt from these 3 races. Note that these lessons apply specifically to the Kennedy’s Bush course, which I like to think of as my own since it’s where I learnt to ride my bike properly.

Lesson 1: First at first isn’t a recipe for first
Or in actual english, just because I can get the hole shot (or get into the singletrack first) doesn’t mean I should. In the first race I didn’t get the hole shot, poor line position, but was in the top 3 and had to work really hard through the singletrack. In the second race I went all out and got the hole shot and then proceeded to explode as I went far too hard on the singletrack again. In the third race I went out hardish, was in second, actively took it easy through the first bits of singletrack and hit the hill climb with lungs still intact.

Lesson 2: Lungs help you breathe
Sure this seems self-evident, especially to cyclists, however when you’re out on the short course and you’ve got that big hit of adrenalin off the start line and all you can think is “GO AS FAST AS YOU CAN” you can forget this. In fact you can almost disregard it, and that’s what I did in the first two races by taking my lungs out of my chest on the first lap and leaving lying at the bottom corner of the course. It was very irresponsible of me and made it extremely difficult to finish the race. In the third race I looked after my poor fragile lungs and they looked after me. Nary a cough was heard after the third race.

Lesson 3: Spin for the win
Well, not the win, overall anyway. Well, a win of sorts, for me personally. Anyway, the first two races I pushed a big gear up the hill because I could, for the first 3 laps anyway. It hurt and was hard, but I didn’t go fast and got progressively slower through those races. The last race I dropped down into my baby chainring on the first lap and spun up the hill as fast as pushing a bigger gear. On the second lap I spun up faster than pushing a bigger gear and on laps 3, 4 and 5 I got faster each lap rather than slower.

Lesson 4: I like to go downhill
Well duh! Not so much of a lesson this one, more a bit of showing off. I went down that course fast. As fast ,and in some cases faster, than the sport guys. It was really, really fun and I want to do it again and again and again.

Lesson 5: There’s nothing like support
A good sports bra is mandatory. No, that's not what I meant to say. I ride recreational, but that doesn’t mean I’m not competitive. I’m out to push myself as hard as I can. For me it’s not about winning, it’s about improving and I do take these things pretty seriously (blush). Having people cheer you on is great. I loved having all the people cheering me on and heckling on Sunday, it made me go faster. Having the 3 races one after the other means there’s always plenty of spectators on hand to yell support no matter which category you’re racing in.

Lesson 6: Not all pain is good
Burning, jelly legs are good. Burning, jelly lungs are not good. Flopping down because you’ve expended all your energy and your legs don’t work is good. Flopping down because you can’t breath is not good. Flopping down on gorse, matagauri or rocks is not good.

I loved the short course series. I’m not a sprinter, and I never will be, but I loved every pain filled insanely fun minute of it. We had lots of people along to these races who all looked like they were hating it during the races (especially the uphill bit) but were all grinning and laughing on the finish line, so hopefully there will be more in the future. Huge thanks to Craig and Rebekah at the Christchurch Singletrack Club for organising these races.

Break’s over! To the hills!

Last week I rested and recovered from my 2 races at the weekend. To say I was feeling a bit spent on Monday morning would be to massively understate how terrible I felt. My whole body hurt, particularly my legs and my back. Luckily I had yoga that evening and that helped greatly, as did liberal application of Anit-flamme. Tuesday and Wednesday I just chilled and Thursday I had yoga again. After another fantastic and challenging class I was ready to get back on the bike and what better way to ease into it than to practise the short course track with Michelle. *

* Better ways could have included laps of McLeans or Bottlelake on the singlespeed, a leisurely ride up Rapaki and across the traverse, sifting Flying Nunn repeats or even shuttlez.

It was a tad blusterous on Kennedy’s Bush and up on Siberia it was freezing and howling. I decided to go full on for 20 minutes and see if I could break the 5 lap mark. The wind quickly put pay to this plan as I was struggling to pedal down the steepest sections. After 18 and a half minutes I’d managed 4 laps and my throat and chest was agony. It didn’t bode well for Sunday, but I try to ignore boding where ever possible.

Friday was much better fun. Lovely hubby and I put some new, wider Kore bars on my bouncey bike, at the suggestion of the fabulous local supplier. He was right! We also tweeked the suspension which was set up waaaaay too hard and moved the brake levers and shifters around, all of which resulted in a much more stable and fun bike to ride down a hill. Which is what I did and met up with the girls for some shuttles. Frist run down Vic Park and my brakes and shifters weren’t in the right place so I adjusted them for the second run. The second run we went up to the Nun, where I hammered my legs by forgetting to put my seat up for the climb. The Nun was flowing sweet and we had a great ride down to the Kiwi. I love my new bars. The down Vic park and grins all round. Amongst our party was a lovely Vorbette from the tree covered north and it was fun showing her our trails, which are somewhat more exposed, rocky and full of wonderful corners than she was used to. However this didn’t stop her riding fast and well, it is so great showing the trails you love off to others.

Saturday I spent the day watching horsies race round and drunk slappers stumble over. I enjoyed the horsies a lot, and got my yell on regularly to try and urge my horse into the money. Unfortunately my horse choosing skills leave a lot to be desired and it was not a financially successful day. It was fun dressing up though.

Sunday was short course again. After Thursday’s efforts I wasn’t feeling optimistic and was also worried about running into children on the course. Because of this I was determined to get a good start so I could have a clear run down the singletrack on my first lap. This part was achieved and I steamed into the singletrack in first and blasted down, with my usual insane grin fixed firmly to my face. I needn’t have worried about being held up by children too much, I’d gone out far too hard and was destroying myself wheezing up the first climb and everyone streamed past me. I was held up a bit on the singletrack, but not much and then Megan zoomed past me on the hill climb like I was standing still. That woman has mad-core skillz to come down and race at great speed on a track she’s never been near in her life. I’d catch up with her on the singletrack and then she’d pull away again on the climb. In the forth lap I got badly held up by a number of elite riders who were pre-riding the track, but managed to get past eventually and also past Megan in the chaos. I felt stink about passing her like that and was pretty happy when she went back past me up the climb. I didn’t hear anyone telling me how long there was to go at the top so I figured I must still have loads of time for another lap and headed out. I pushed hard down the singletrack and headed up the climb thinking “Thank god I don’t have to go out for a 5th lap”. I was so knackered that I had no idea how many laps I’d done and when I heard the hooter sound I thought it was the 3 minutes to go signal. After I’d collapsed at the end my husband informed me I was really close to getting my last lap in and I was horrified I’d only managed to do 3 laps, talk about pushed past the point of comprehension! As it was, I got 4 laps again and was 30 seconds off getting that magic 5th lap. Next week is my last chance so I’ll have to be more strategic about my start and not destroy myself in the first minute of the race.

Looming large on my calendar is the Moa Hunt, only 11 sleeps away. I don’t usually count down to races in sleeps, but the Moa is the day before the Pearl Jam concert and that is ONLY 12 SLEEPS AWAY! The excitement I feel about this concert cannot be contained within a mere blog so I’m not going to attempt to quantify it. Back to the Moa. Being so close and being made primarily of enormous climbs I’m heading for the hills to sharpen my legs up for the task of breaking the 4 hour mark on the Moa. Admittedly that’s only 3 minutes faster than last year so shouldn’t be too much of a big ask. Hopefully I’ll do it in 3hrs 30, but I’m not overly confident about that goal, I’ll just have to see what the day has in store for me.

I’ve started out this week with a new commute via Kennedy’s Bush Rd and then down the Croc. This gives my legs a really good work out hammering up the road and puts a big grin on my face with its yummy switchback descent. I’m off to do Nun repeats tonight so that should give me more hill climbing kilometres in my legs. I have big plans for the weekend, but that’s another story. Stay tuned!

From one extreme to another

All the training I’ve been doing seems to have had a strange effect on my mind and I’ve started to develop a disturbing masochistic streak. It was this fascination with pain which lead me to get my dust covered bike back out of its secure and restful home and take it up Kennedy’s Bush. To race again. The day after doing the Molesworth. Really really fast. I was basically saying “Yes, the Molesworth hurt me a lot, but I’m feeling a tiny bit better, please can I have some more pain”! What has happened to me??!!

Pinning it and grinning into the tight corner at the bottom of the singletrack

It was a beautiful sunny day and the track is my favourite little piece of singletrack for descending. The laps were short, it was Short Track racing after all, and most importantly I only had to ride for 20 minutes. Surely I could handle that, even after the Molesworth. I was running late so ended up riding harder up the hill to get to the start than I intended. I was surprised that my legs weren’t feeling too bad. There weren’t many of us in the Recreational division, so we lined up on the start line and I decided to give it absolutely everything I had for the first lap and see what happened. I managed to get into 3rd into the singletrack and was keeping up with the guys in the front the whole way through the descent, yay madcore skills, but as soon I hit the climb the rest of the boys streamed past me and I was hurting. This was a very very stupid idea. I managed to stay in my middle ring and cranked out the first lap in good time. Into the 2nd lap and I could tell it was all over. Managed to push fairly hard through the singletrack, but backed off a little in a couple of places to try and get my breath back. Up the farm track and things were bad, still stayed in middle ring but vision was going blurry and all the pain from yesterday was back in my legs and had found some new friends to add to the party.

Third lap was just a blur of pain, descending still good, hoping not to get lapped. Managed to hold the boys off on the climb and was back into the singletrack for my last lap. Pinned my ears back and went for it down the track and found my legs had absolutely nothing in them for the climb and was quickly lapped by the leaders. Down into grannies to crawl over the line at the top. Knew I was broken so didn’t use the last 3.5 mins to flog myself unconscious. I just lay face down on the ground with my shaking legs and blades of grass up my nose. It was very very fun and very very sore (the racing, not the blades of grass – they were just a bit tickly). Next week I’ll have fresher legs and hopefully put on a better effort.

The Sport category only had 3 entrants which was a bit of a poor showing. They still flogged themselves ragged around the short course for 25 minutes. Then was the Expert race and it was looking to be a goodie. With Anton Cooper, Oliver Whalley (complete with lovely belt driven singlespeed ventana), Craig Tregurtha, Kyle Wood, Sara Taylor and even Craig Sharratt lining up to push each other to the limit. With a field of 11 the race was extremely fast and furious with Anton completing laps in a scorching 2mins 20 secs per lap! It was a brilliant race to watch. With the course being so short and having a few technical challenges for the over-enthusiastic it was great to see the amazing skills of these fast talented riders, all pushing their limits. It was almost as much fun watching this race as it was racing in mine. I can’t wait till next week, and if you’re in Christchurch next Sunday I’d highly recommend you come along for a look and maybe a race (especially if you’re of the female persuasion), they’re only short!
Check out: http://www.singletrack.org.nz/event-calandar/short-track-series/