Taupo Enduro - Lap Two

Taupo Enduro – Lap Two

Or the descent into madness!!! After what turned out to be a 17 minute stop at the Caltex, a fresh bottle (I still had one 2/3 full bottle which, in hindsight, I should have swapped for a full one), sunscreen, change from merino to summer jersey, remove legwarmers (thanks Trudi!!), change gloves knock back some coffee – and we were under way. I’d hoped that this lap would be a lot more fun than the first one, and I was so right! Catherine was on form from the start, having swotted up on kiddies songs, motivational speaking and general c**p talking! We joined the main ride with the 6hr plus group, so the chance of getting any help from a bunch was pretty remote… in fact we ended up towing a bunch of our own at least once! We took the first 40k at a steady pace, passing a lot of other riders and getting an education at the same time – I got barked at by an i-pod wearing lady about staying left so that others could pass… My jaw dropped & I didn’t really have a comeback to that, seeing as though we were still passing other riders at the time!! We passed her back a couple of hills later and didn’t see her again!! This point, though, was when I realized how good it felt to “Roooar!!” out loud, something I (and Catherine) did several times during our lap – generally at the start of hills. My main focus at this stage was to stay out of trouble – which we did, while solving the problems of the world, singing the odd (and I do mean odd!) song and generally being totally un-Serious about the whole thing. An older gentleman asked us, while gasping, how we could talk and ride up hills at the same time… answer “we’re women! We’ll be putting our makeup on next!” OK, maybe a step too far, but it made me laugh!! One of the highlights of the lap was finding out about Doug. We saw lots of vests with “Doug’s Crew” on them, so, of course, we had to find out who he was. Turns out that Doug is 80 years old and his crew was there to support him the whole way around. What a legend!

Approaching Kuratau we invented a new game – loosely based on the ice-cream add that goes togs, togs, togs, Undies! Undies! Basically anytime we saw VPL the call went out! Bonus points for Skins or inappropriate socks. This kept us entertained for a fair while! There were many other silly moments, jokes and episodes of mild hysteria – most of which you really just had to be there to appreciate! As we climbed Kuratau I was regretting not taking on 2 full bottles at the start… I managed to ration what I had left until we got to the aid station at the top of the hill, where I gulped down 2 cups of water while a nice lady rinsed and filled my bottle for me. Off down the hill (slowly – I never really got my descending mojo back) and towards Tokaanu, where Shane was on his bike ready to meet us, complete with spare bottles. I chose to stop at the van anyway, to sort out my fuel and fluid for the last 50km and to re-apply sunscreen. Shane joined us for the last leg of the ride (while Catherine’s husband Rod drove the support van) – which I was very grateful for, seeing as though a rather brisk headwind had developed. He set a comfortable pace that saw us collect groups of riders, drop them, collect more only to upset them all when we made our final pit-stop not long before Hatepe. Coke and fudge (laced with coffee beans) on board and I was ready for the final hurdle. Rrroooarrr!! Shane, with fresher legs, shot up the hill, while Catherine and I met with looks of disbelief by the blokes that we rode past as we burst into a verse of “the wheels on the bike go round and round” while climbing Hatepe! (Disclaimer – you have to remember that by this stage I was very sleep deprived, slightly manic and was behaving even more oddly than usual!) We regrouped at the bottom of the hill and headed for home. Up the airport hill (charging up behind Shane cos I’d forgotten to shift into my small chain ring – durr!), up the rise into Taupo, along the finish chute, across the line with my incredible support team and it was done!!! And so was I! Hugs all round, then collapse on to the grass.

Couldn’t have done it without the amazing support I had from Shane and Catherine. I really can’t find the words right now to say just how important your support was…

Taupo Enduro - Lap One

How hard could it be?? Damn hard… harder than a hard, hard thing, that’s how hard! I made a couple of fundamental mistakes in preparation and learned some hard lessons along the way. Not getting a proper sleep during the day was my first mistake… the second was Burger Fuel for dinner!! Normally I get along well with BF – but, to be safe, I had their mini-burger (vegetarian) which is about the size of a tennis ball. That, combined with pre-event nerves, meant that I was riding with a concrete block in my tummy for most of the first lap. Something else I need to work on is confidence – not believing that I could do the 2 laps led to some unpleasant mental moments early in the morning.

Anyway – on to the lap itself…I rolled up to the start at about 1.00am, had a chat with some of the guys and tried to remember that this really was a good idea! Welcome from the DTZ team, and then we were off. The group set of at a reasonable pace, apart from 3 that flew off the front, and I drifted further and further back, finally riding on my own. I had a lot of trouble with the down-hills – I’m a wuss on the descents at the best of times… so with unfamiliar roads, darkness and sleep deprivation I was pretty much crawling. Some fun mind games when I saw the 20km down sign at about an hour of ride time – I felt like crying – OMG I’ll be out here for ever!! My body did it’s best to shut down and go to sleep about 1.5 hours in to the ride… I was very tempted to curl up on the side of the road (frost and all) and sleep. The temperature seemed quite mild at the start, but by Waihaha hill my fingers were starting to go numb… time to stop for a fluffy vest and winter gloves. My lovely hubby did a brilliant job of supporting me in the van, lighting up the down-hills and driving beside me with the window down and stereo blasting on the up-hills! Heading towards Kuratau the sky slowly started to lighten, birds started singing and my spirits started to lift a little.

Finally (!) got to the top of the hill and damn near froze on the way down (4 deg according to my Polar)… my comment to hubby at the bottom was ****** ****!!! That was cold!!! Ditched the fluffy vest, grabbed a fresh bottle and headed for Taupo. It was nice to get several friendly toots from cars loaded up with bikes… the previous 100 km had been pretty lonely! It’s so different from a solo mtb event where you always have someone to chat to and people yelling “go Solo” all the time. I caught a maxi enduro rider up Hatepe and chatted to him for a while before carrying on… I saw him again on the way in to Taupo, sitting on the wheel of Gav’s dad, who was riding his mtb! He’d said he might be heading that way, and boy was I glad to see him! Was I embarrassed to be drafting a guy in baggies riding an old skool mtb? Hell, no!! And neither were the 2 maxi riders also in the train!! Managed to find my way to the Caltex station to sign in, where Shane, Catherine, Rod and Trudi were waiting… I’d survived my first lap. I still had legs, the day was warming up, I knew I’d have good company for the next lap…

Apprehension – or who’s silly idea was it anyway...

To enter for the Taupo Enduro (2 laps around Lake Taupo)? I’m sure it can’t have been mine… anyways I’m into the final week of preparation and feeling distinctly apprehensive. I had a 4 hour road ride on Saturday – admittedly this included 2 hours of reasonably hard tempo riding – but I was fair knackered afterwards and I have to ride for at least 3 times that duration on Saturday! Gulp! Am I ready? – well, that remains to be seen. I had a good chat with my coach (Robyn Wong) which reminded me that I just have to trust that I’ve done the training and that my body is ready for this. I’ve sorted out my plans for support/feeding etc – Hammer Perpetuem is my fuel of choice. It’s an acquired taste – but has gone well in testing, so I hope it will work as well on the day. Shane will be supporting me from the van (accompanied by solo Tigger) (Picture to come) for the first lap, but driving to set points and waiting, rather than ‘shadowing’ at <30kph! He may end up riding with me for some time if I don’t manage to stay with the group – but no drafting!

During the week I got an e-mail from my good friend Catherine in the form of a fantastically funny job application for ‘team Jude’. She has volunteered to ride my second lap with me, pretty much forfeiting any chance of posting a respectable time and potentially suffering several hours of me describing just exactly how sore my butt is!! This is an amazing thing for her to do – and reminds me just how lucky I am to have some pretty awesome people in my life. We’ll be easy to pick out of the crowd – just listen for the badly sung (by me anyway) kiddies songs!!

Fingers crossed for a warm and calm weekend in Taupo!!

Thanks to Shane, Robyn & Gav for their help in preparation for this event.

PNP Race 5 - Racing on a shoestring

… or in this case a shoelace!!!

It was the usual start to a PNP race day for me, including the usual pre-race banter, discussion of tactics and deciding who was going to get the drinks in at the finish!!

I didn’t start well – got baulked on the start line, missed my pedal (insert further excuses here) and was playing catch-up for most of the lovely road climb. All of the girls (Masters Women) were climbing well, so I was happy to have them in sight at the entrance to Rimu – and more than happy to be free of the bug I’d been dealing with for the last couple of weeks. I let a couple of the faster college boys who had almost caught me go into the trail first, then pedal, pedal, turn, turn, pop out of the end of the trail – SPLAT! D’oh!! (note to self – must get weight forward when turning on loose gravel.) I picked myself up, discovered a couple of minor leaks but the body was otherwise good to carry on… but something was missing. Turns out I’d smashed the housing on my rear X7 shifter pod and it was flapping around just above my front tyre. Lea anne stopped to help, so I grabbed a spare twist tie, then faced the decision… coast back home – or try out my new full suspension single-speed! Was too nice a day to go home early, so off I went (not really single-speeding – I did have my front shifter to use!) Plodded up the 4wd track,

down the hill (spinny spin), up the hill until I got to MacGyver (Scotty) at the end of Koru. No tape or cable ties to be had – so Scotty sacrificed a shoelace (from one of his wildly fashionable mismatched shoes) and securely tied the shifter pod to my bars. (I hope the walk back down wasn’t too uncomfortable for him). Well – no excuse not to carry on… Up Sally Alley, down and up Missing Link, up Aratihi… MUCH respect to those who SS these trails on a regular basis. I was passed by someone that sounded like Dave on Aratihi – but he was on a geared full suspension bike, wearing shorts that didn’t hurt my eyes… so I’m not sure who it really was!! I got blown away at the top of Aratihi – once by the wind (I managed to bail before the bike and I ended up down the bank) and once by a the pace of a flying Slackboy charging to make up time after a puncture. Well – all downhill from this point – spinny spin spin, pedal, spin all the way down to Angry Corner (Wet Feet), where I carried my bike across the stream, figuring the poor thing had suffered enough for one day, and cruised home. Of course, I had to tell anyone who wanted to listen (and some who didn’t) my tale of woe – and going for maximum ‘hard’ points by showing off my leaking arm and broken bike. So – I came last in class, but was pleased to finish the race and the series. And yes, I did give Scotty’s shoelace back!

Thanks to Marco, PNP and volunteers for organizing a great series, thanks to all those who passed me (and the few that I passed) for the lack of drama, politeness and respect shown throughout. A huge thanks to Catherine, Charlotte and the other Masters girls for making having my **** kicked in races feel like so much fun!

Next event = Taupo Enduro. Which I am fully prepared for. Yeah, right!!!

PNP MTB Series - Rounds 1-3

I'd avoided local mtb races in the past - mostly due to the chicken factor! I was worried about looking like a twit, coming in noticeably last, getting in the way of faster riders etc... So this year it was time for a handful of HTFU pills and time to get on with it :-) One of the best ideas I've (well, OK, my coach) had - the series has been an absolute blast so far!! This has been written a little after the events - so I may or may not have taken some unintentional liberties with the facts...

Round 1 - Makara.

This got off to a great start when my semi-planned warm-up was interrupted by my lungs remembering that I hadn't taken my inhaler... hmmm - warm legs or breathing; which to choose? Lungs won, so I rolled up to the start line in a less than ready state. Not that it really mattered in the end!! Nice to have some familiar faces in Masters Women - the boys can have their smack talk, we were discussing who was going to get the coffees & what to have for lunch!!
The race got off to the usual chaotic start, as we start with the teenage boys who all absolutely HAVE to get to the singletrack first. A classic moment right before Big Tom's Wheelie where Charlotte had missed the turn off and had to come back down: "You go first... no you go!" I slipped, slithered, bounced and gasped my way around the track (with a quick 'yee-har' when I cleaned the tricky bit (for me) of Livewires. Splash through the river, then home in 4th place.

Round 2 - Wainui.

This was always going to be testing for me - with my vast technical skill and love of mud (yeah, right!) And, just to add another excuse, my legs were still feeling the effect of the previous week's 12hr effort. Charlotte took off from the start & I didn't see her again until the finish... where she'd had time to clean her bike and crack open a beer :-). Much swapping of places and cursing of hills on the Crazyman climb - was in second for a while, but Phillippa's vastly superior singletrack skills saw her pass me just before the bypass. Slippy, sloppy, muddy and tree-rooty trails made the descent pretty slow for me - managed to stay more or less upright until the final chute, where I made use of a friendly tree.

Round 3 - Mt Victoria

Hills, burning lungs, more uphill... once again my skills let me down as I was passed on the first downhill!! I don't remember a lot about this race, apart from toppling over a couple of times - but I'm sure it was fun!!

The series has been more fun than I'd ever imagined it could be... a great bunch of ladies to race/ride with, challenging trails (um, thanks Marco!) and on the whole the faster riders (usually blokes) have been patient and good natured about passing. I'd highly recommend these races to anyone that's thought about it, but has been put off by thinking that you have to be a 'real racer' to enter.

Day Night Thriller 12hr Solo Report

So much for the event title – this was a team event from way before I got to the start line! Following the training schedule set out by Coach (Robyn), hubby Shane servicing and preparing my bike, Big Gav for giving my wheels some love after their World Cup mission in Canberra (where Lisa taught them to go fast!)

Plan for this year was to try and stay in touch with the 2 riders that I placed behind at the Moonride – I didn’t know any of the other solo women, so didn’t know what to expect from them. I started the event in my usual style – being passed rapidly by the more confident and/or aggressive riders and ending up towards the back of the pack! I got a rark-up from hubby on my first time through the pits – something along the lines of everyone else being long gone!! I lost at least 5 minutes to my competition on this lap – something to work on for the future. I slowly began to work my way through the field – receiving a boost at one point by following PBR after he passed me – Dean makes a most excellent traffic cop J I was enjoying myself 3 laps in – pushing myself a little harder than I though I could, singing to myself along the trails (apologies to anyone who may have heard me) and through the pits “Whoooah – Livin’on a Prayer!!!” and some dodgy 70’s number that stuck in my head!! I rode with Jemima Brindle (Jim) for a while – managing to give her a laugh when I stupidly chucked my bike away over a tree root! Unfortunately she had to pull out of the event just after halfway with an upset stomach. Jim’s well and truly kicked my butt at the last couple of events & I was looking forward to seeing if I could stay closer to her this time.

Pit passes (no stops allowed!!) were a dream – Lisa was waiting every lap & would run alongside of me to pass my bottle and stuff food in my pocket. I didn’t drink much on the first few laps, but, once reminded, managed to get through enough fluid for the rest of the day. Gave they guys in the tent next to ours some entertainment as I fired empty bottles and cups into their site!

I got the shock of my life when I caught Megan (Dimozantos – 24hr Moonride winner) in the pit area – I had a very long WTF moment until I figured that I must have somehow been a lap down on her, and have clawed that back. Lisa told me to go and catch her – nice thought, but didn’t really work! I had a quick chat with Megan, tried to congratulate her on her efforts at World Solo Champs, but she soon picked up the pace and left me behind… I passed her back later that lap while she was stopped out on the trail and just kept on pedaling until I was told it was time to put my lights on.

The light stop went smoothly – except that I had my phone with me and my light battery was pressing on the camera button, so I heard beep-beep-beep-beep for the whole lap! Kind of hard to sing along to…

The low point of the roller coaster that is endurance riding kicked in for me at about the 8.5 hour mark… I had no legs, no energy & wanted to curl up and have a wee bawl!! Got back to the pits to tell the team that I’d blown, and that was it… Lisa made me stop and get some solid food in, got a hug from hubby and was off… must’ve done the trick cos I was singing again by the top pits!!


Riders on the whole were pretty well behaved – ended up leaning on a guy who tried to pass me as I was going around a rider up a climb, having a conversation that went something like “I say, old chap, that’s not really on. How about you wait until there’s a bit of space, what?” The pits themselves were a little dodgier – I think I did a passable imitation of a screaming psycho harpy more than once as riders did their best to t-bone me when starting their laps.


As time wore on I looked at my watch & had less than 90 minutes to go – not enough time for 3 laps, but plenty for 2. At this point I thought I was second, and was hoping I could hold on to that placing. I stopped for a feed – scoffed down some coffee-bean fudge (washed down with powerade), loaded up with coke and headed out for my last stint – Yay, I only have to do this once more!! It was time to sing again… w00t – last lap!! Goodbye river, goodbye tree roots, goodbye to the tree that I tried to ride into every lap… grovel up the climb into the pits – ACDC starts playing! I’ve got 10 minutes to get through the pits – easy! Down the hill, over the ramp, turn right, up the hill (being pushed by Lisa!!) to the Jamis site where Lisa tells me I’ve won!! My response went something like “You’re f**cken kidding me!!” Hugs all around, then parked my weary arse in front of the heater with a coffee & watched the team pack up. I think I may have had a couple of sips of pinot at one point while talking (babbling) to Lisa– apparently it helps to speed recovery!

Megan spoke to me after prizegiving – didn’t even see her on the podium! I’m extremely embarrassed to say that I hardly took in what she was saying… I’d love to catch up with her at some point when I’m a little more awake & compare notes.

Finally - thanks again to Lisa for keeping me fed, watered and on target… and for running around with Tigger tied to her head!!

The Tale so far...

Well - where to start. The beginning would seem to be the logical place... but that's sooo long ago!! I started riding a bike about 4 years ago, when my lovely hubby bought me my first ever bike! Lots of wobbling, crashing, trauma and learning later, here I am! Along the way I've met some fantastic people (a lot through http://www.vorb.org.nz/) and developed a love of endurance events. Biking for me is about having fun, challenging myself and generally getting the most out of the sport that I possible can. In the last 12-18 months I've learned to push my body (and mind) harder than I would have believed possible... I've learned that I'll never be fast, but that I'm stubborn enough to just keep on going and going.... I've learned that no-one that matters will laugh at you for trying - but sometimes you have to laugh at yourself!