The longest day...

My lovely coach had set me a 10hr training ride for the weekend – followed by 3-5 hours the next day! On Saturday I awoke to a cool, moderately cloudy day. This was to be my longest training ride… also my longest ever solo ride. Shane had planned my route and printed out directions for my big adventure – I had no real idea where I was going! I loaded up with 2 bottles of Perpetuem, stuffed a couple of gels in my pocket and I was off! Through Taupo, over the bridge, turn left into a stonking head wind! I proceeded at a snail’s pace, but I remembered this section being slow on the Enduro so just kept on pedaling… my goal was time, rather than distance, after all. No music today – I wasn’t in the greatest of moods (in other words I was a grumpy cow) and was determined to Get The Ride Done. The next few hours were a mix of heat, rain, hills, sweat and roadworks! I got towards the end of my first set of directions and saw “turn right into Huirimu Rd” which I did – and promptly found myself on an unsealed farm road – yee har!! Thinking “how bad can it be”(and also having no idea of where else to go) I started along it. Pedal, slip, ride, walk, curse… I made my way for about 4km to find that the road took a sharp turn in the upwards direction, and no way was I going to be able to negotiate that with the amount of lose gravel/rocks on the surface. My text and call to the Waambulance (Shane) went unanswered; so I trudged and pedaled my way back to the start of the road, where I finally met Shane. Don’t think I’ll be entering any pave races any time soon! After a slight detour I was back on track and made my scheduled 100km-ish stop for fresh bottles and a gel. More of the same weather and hills followed, interspersed with some amazing scenery – I’d even perked up enough to smile at the camera (which I was seeing far too much of, but hubby had to keep himself entertained somehow)! I did a short stint on SH1, which was the worst part of the whole ride. Noisy, lots of trucks, splashes from puddles – utter pants! I wasn’t watching my time, just distance, so I was disappointed to see that I still had over 90 minutes to go at the 210km mark! I made my final scheduled stop – taking on H.E.E.D for a change of flavour – and changed plans slightly to avoid the Whirinaki Valley (I’d had enough of hills – and would have gone well over time). I still had some time to kill when we got into Rotorua, so Shane led me on a tiki-tour of the city’s highlights!! I got off the bike once we got to the motel and waited for my brain to re-engage – it didn’t! I gulped down some Recoverite, took a l-o-n-g shower and used the miracle of modern technology to order pizza. Then I was ready for some serious sleep…

Then, all too soon, it was Sunday morning. My plan said 3-5 hours on the road. I decided to head out from the Waipa Mill carpark, which was the base for the 3rd round of the N-Duro Summer Cup. Shane was racing, along with Catherine and some other friends, so it was a good chance for a gossip and catch-up before the ride. I eventually got going just as Op Shop came on over the sound system… that was to be today’s soundtrack, as well as the ever present Pink (and some hideously awful 70’s number that I refuse to name and couldn’t shake). My legs felt as powerful as your average wet noodle – but I’d expected that. I hadn’t expected the puncture I got after 25 minutes… Grrr at people who throw bottles on the road! I had some mild entertainment of my lap of the lake – provided by a roadie (?) in a baggy white top who was out for a ride with a female companion. I passed them as I turned on to Haumurana Rd (around the back of the lake) and was surprised to discover him on my tail a few km later (having left his friend behind!). Now I was pretty tired, I’m too small to be a good windbreak and not the fastest on the flat at the best of times – but hey! If you wanna draft me, knock yourself out! He pulled up beside me on the hill (with a squeaky bike) – but must have stopped to wait for his companion, because I didn’t see him again until I’d been through Ngongotaha – and he went passed me on the tail of some other random roadie!! At this point I was starting to feel pretty flat – but made the wrong choice to wait a while before taking on a gel. Bad move! Part way into the journey home (back around the lake) I totally ran out of go. I inhaled a gel and slogged my way along waiting for it to kick in. In hindsight I hadn’t refueled properly the night before, and was running on empty before I even started the ride.

I arrived back at the car park to find Shane had won his class – awesome! – and Catherine had also won hers. Time for food… the food cart had nachos! Excellent! Catherine very kindly helped me demolish my rather generous portion!

Finally it was time for the drive home. Tired, grumpy and teary – but pleased to have met my training goals for the weekend. Got home to an ecstatic greeting from the cat – who is always pleased to see me no matter how grumpy I am or how bad I smell!



All the photo's are here

1 long training ride

This post is by Shane

Mission

Date: 21/02/2009

Location: Waikato

Type: Road

Start point: Taupo

Finish point: Rotorua

Distance : 250Km approx

Duration 10hrs approx

Start time 08:30hrs

Weather 1st 45 mins : Sunny

Weather for most of ride: Showers, some heavy in between being damp, little sun

Weather for last 50 mins: Sunny

Head wind for 1st 100ks

some big hills

a gravel road Doh!

Karapoti is calling...

And no matter how hard I try, I can’t ignore it! Preparations began with my first meeting with the lovely Tip Track in quite some time. Gee, I’d missed it. Anyways, I climbed on at the 2nd gate and proceeded to cough, splutter, gasp and curse my way up. I’d never managed to ride cleanly up to the stockyards before, let alone the whole way, so I was stoked to see the top gate not a dab taken. Ha – cue one muppet moment and –SPLAT- I was on the deck, leaking from a knee. Oh, well… back on the bike, pedal to the gate, push bike to the top and collapse in a heap. 4 minutes faster than my previous best, but no land speed records today. I was just happy that the little red Jamis seemed to climb so much better than my previous steed. I was scheduled for 2 full climbs, but with my throat mildly infected feeling pretty raw I decided to aim for the stockyards and then turn around. I rode much smoother this time – who’d have thought climbing is easier when you relax and don’t fight the bike (durr) and was happy with the time it took.

The next day was a 4 hour road ride – I meet Charlotte in Johnsonville so had company for the last 3 hours, which made time go a heck of a lot faster. We then finished the day in the best possible way – BBQ, red wine and lots of bike talk!
Fast forward a week and Shane and I met up with Charlotte and Tim to have a look at the Karapoti course. The first time I rode/walked Karapoti (last year) I just about burst tears. I thought that, since I’d done Taupo, Karapoti was only 50km and would be easy. Yeah, right! I think my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head on the Warm-up climb! At least this year I was better prepared for how tough it would be. I piked on the first stream crossing (on the to-do list for later) – but was stoked to ride the whole of the Warm-up climb for the first time! Yes, it’s been graded and is the easiest it’s ever been, but I was still happy. A combination of riding, walking, sweating and hard breathing followed – I’m OK on the uphill and rolling sections, but rocky downhills have never been my strong point. Then we got to the Rock Garden, which scares me – and I confess to not really having the right attitude to ride it at this point. I’m saving my mental energy for the things that are within my physical abilities! So I walked most of the way down… next stop the Staircase. A combination of push and carry worked well, except for the initial step, where my legs were not long enough for the line I had chosen!!

I walked 3 sections on Dopers – the rut just after the stream and 2 rocky pinches – which is the least time I’ve spend off the bike on that climb, so I was happy again. Not so happy on the way down – a combination of looking where I didn’t want to go and general un-coordinated-ness left me off the side of the road in a heap. It took me a few minutes and some loud “Ow” ing to get back on my bike and catch the others. I’d managed to re-open my knee wound from Tip Track and add some nice lumps and bruises for good measure. Ooops. Anyway, back to the van in about 10 minutes slower time than my race time last year. I felt stronger and faster, but this wasn’t really reflected in the time I took.

Only 3 weeks to go. Although this isn’t one of my goal events, I still feel I have something to prove. I guess I’ll find out on race day!

In search of Mojo

After my last update it seemed I’d left whatever mojo I had back in Vegas… So – what else could I do but go back and look for it! I’d booked a skills session with mtbskillsclinics.com to coincide with Shane racing the 2nd round of the N-duro Summer Cup. 3 long days in the forest (including a race)– surely that would be long enough to hunt down and recapture the mojo? Well, as so often happens, life had other plans for me as I came down with a rather nasty episode of food poisoning on the Wednesday night. I’ll spare you the gruesome details – suffice to say I was feeling a little less than my best when we set off on Saturday. (3 days without coffee is neither natural nor healthy!!) On our reccy ride of the unfamiliar parts of the 25km course it became obvious that I still had some recovering to do. While my tum had finally settled my energy levels were way down and I was feeling as flat as a squashed pancake. A quick consultation with Coach – and it was decided to flag the race and go for an easy sift through the forest instead. I was disappointed, but realistically had nothing to gain by racing.
Monday – my skill session was booked to start at 10.00am, which left time for a nice, leisurely breakfast at Milly’s (trying to make up for lost eating!) – yay for cooked breakfasts.

We met Gabby and Dodzy (who had just got off a plane after racing in the South Island) in the Waipa Mill car park. We started out by reinforcing some of the skills from the Phundamentals course on the fire roads, then into the trails to put them in to practice. We headed for a couple of rooty spots that I’d never managed to clear – and I eventually managed to wobble my way through them. I also found that I can, in fact, go faster than granny-gear pace through flowing singletrack! I can’t say enough good things about Gabby – she has a great eye for what you’re doing (or not doing) on the bike, the ability to break things down into terms that I can understand (I learn best with key words) and, most importantly, seemingly endless patience when faced with Scaredy Cats like me! It would appear that I had indeed located some much-needed mojo. I still have bucket loads to learn, and so much practice to do before the techniques that I have learned become habit… but I feel like I made some really good progress over the weekend.