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…