2008 Wild Wellington MTB Relay

Wow. Monday already huh? The weekend sure flies when you spend half of it riding bikes!

Saturday was the second Wild Wellington MTB Relay. Last year, I was in a social 4 person mixed team, the Cocktail Queens, and we had an awesome time - raced hard when we felt like it, and chilled out and relaxed drinking "mocktails" throughout the day. We had the tent all decked out with fairy lights, a disco ball, a generator, and a full-functioning bar complete with blender and various alcoholic drinks. Ah.. good times. We even won the award for best campsite! Awesome.


This year's Wild Wellington was a bit different. A slightly more serious, but still very fun, team. Thanks to Mike Stylianou at Hyperformance Hardware (the Santa Cruz importers) who sponsored us our entry fee, myself and a couple of fellow Santa Cruz riders entered a 12 hour womens team, aptly called the Santa Cruzettes, and we were out there to do the best we could. Reigning champions the Bicycle Chicks consisted of a rather fast group of girls, three of which have (or are) racing Pro-elite Women at Nationals.. eep! Oh well, let's just go out and have fun!

Although teams could have up to five people, we opted to run with a group of three. Myself, Charlotte Ireland (3rd in the 6 hour solo women's category at the Day Nighter earlier this year), and Rita Langley (recent addition to the Santa Cruz NZ DH division, 2008 Oceanias DH Champ, is racing Pro-elite DH this season, and we were in the same 3-person team last year at the Day Nighter where we came second!). Charlotte and I were on our Superlights, while Rita was on a Heckler. Yay Santa Cruz :)


I'm not quite sure how I got stuck with doing the first lap for the team but oh well. On the start line it was! I'd arrived there just as the people were all turning around which meant that I somehow ended up in the front row. Uh oh - now that won't do! After a bit of shuffling and place-swapping, I managed to make my way back to the third or fourth row. Ah that's a bit bettter.

Countdown to the start. Horn/buzzer/start gun (I can't remember the exact object making the noise!) and we were off. Up the road on a short climb, then out into the singletrack. There was a bit of traffic on the singletrack, but it wasn't progressing at too slow a speed. Luckily there were quite a few passing opportunities on course - the first major one of which was when we met back up with the road. Very thankful that there was a road closure in place as everyone was climbing up on the wrong side of the road! A little bit more climbing, more singletrack, more climbing, a bit of down, more singletrack, a short pinchy climb, flat/undulating, a bit muddy, a short-ish but fast/steep downhill, more singletrack, a bit more downhill.. then up, up, and up again back to the saddle. Then down a bit to get back to the velodrome. Sorry not the most detailed of course descriptions, but it'll do! There was definitely more climbing than descending to be done though, but not as much climbing as there was last year. Nice.


So my first lap went quite well.. I managed to make it back to the velodrome (where the tents were based) in around 23 minutes (around mid-pack) to tag Charlotte who headed out on the next lap. Charlotte came back, Rita headed out, then it was my turn again. We had decided to do single laps and in hindsight I'm glad we did. It meant that we could go out and go as hard out as we wanted, then come back and sit and recover from that lap for another 50 minutes or so until our next one. Those 50 minutes went pretty quickly though! Between eating, drinking, chatting, socialising, etc.., before you knew it, it was time to put your helmet and gloves back on and get ready to head back out there!


As a team, we ended up doing 27 laps in the 12 hours. Yup, that's 9 laps each. I think we (individually) did more laps than most of the people out there. For example, a team of 5 who did 35 laps meant that each person only did 7 laps. For some reason, I felt like I was taking it easier on each successive lap, only to come back and be told that the lap was my fastest one yet! Interesting. In fact, my lap times for eight of my nine laps were within around 30 seconds of each other. The last lap I did was a couple of minutes slower, partly because I was getting tired, and also because subconsciously I knew if I went as fast as I was going before, I'd potentially have to head out for a final (10th!) lap! By that stage of things, we were already a few laps ahead of the team in third, and a few laps behind the Bicycle Chicks in front, so it wouldn't have been necessary for me to do a 10th lap to keep our place. Even so.. I can't help but wonder what would've happened if we had the time for that final lap. Hmmmm... gotta love those post-race questions eh!

So now we're a couple of days post-race and I'm still a bit tired. Not surprising given how many calories my HR monitor was telling me I was burning per lap, and I'm probably still in some kind of kilojoule deficit at the moment! And quite possibly dehydrated also. Although I did make a conscious effort to drink between laps. I defintely ate and drank more than I did at the 6 hour solo Day Night Thriller event I did a couple of months ago, so that's an improvement! But the comparison isn't really apples for apples. A 6 hour solo is quite different to a 12 hour 3 person team event, and both are enjoyable and difficult for a whole range of reasons. But for now, I think I'm rambling. Perhaps it's time for lunch? Mmmmmmm. Lunch.

So cheers to my teammates Rita and Charlotte for a great day! Yay a silver medal to add to the collection. Thanks also to the organisers of Wild Wellington - a tough race with a tougher course than other 12 hour events, but hey.. that's Wellington for ya!

Next race is this weekend - the final round of the PNP MTB Series. I helped lead a pre-ride yesterday after the Wild Wellington race. I was rather tired by the end of that, and am still rather tired now. And on that note, I'm off to make me some lunch and heading back to the couch to get some sleep!

Zzzzzzzzz..