PNP MTB Series - Round 4

I'll admit it. I was not looking forward to this race. I had a rather shocking pre-ride of the course on Thursday evening - I was riding with two riders considerably faster than me which didn't help my self-esteem when I kept falling back so far behind, I had too much pressure in my tyres, my disc brake had an annoying squeak from the get-go, plus we managed to get lost in a few places and got chased by some cows, and I was really struggling with getting any "flow" on the bike for some reason. Then the ride back out from Belmont Regional Park afterwards with no bike lights (I hadn't expected us to take so long!.. and we didn't even ride the last few sections of the course as it was getting dark) on an unlit road to reach a point close enough to civilisation for cellphone reception to call my husband to come and pick me up... Yeah, so it really wasn't a good start and as a result, I was quite a grumpy Celia that evening and the next day, having decided that it was just no fun and I wasn't going to race at all.

After some kind words of encouragement from a few friends, plus the nagging feeling that I would regret it if I didn't attempt to race, I found myself somewhat reluctantly getting ready this morning, and before I knew it, I was on the start line.

The climb started off better than I thought, with four of us Senior Women getting into a nice single-file line up most of Danzig, a muddy, slippery uphill with a fair few switchbacks and very little traction from the heavy rain the day before. We were all walking/pushing/riding where we could, and it was reassuring to see that I wasn't the only one struggling to ride that particular section. Towards the top of the climb, I fell a bit back from the other three, but I was fine with that. I mean, hey.. I hadn't intended to be out racing at all, let alone being within striking distance of my competitors.

After Danzig, there was a short piece of slippery, muddy singletrack down (where a conveniently placed tree stopped me from going over the handlebars at one point!) followed by a 4WD push/climb. Along some nice wide 4wd roads, up and over a few paddocks (I could still see a couple of the women not too far ahead in the distance.. sweet!), a few gate/fence clambers, over another paddock (where the cows were a lot more placid today!), down a gravel road, then a tarseal road, then it was up into a nasty, long climb. At this point, I managed to almost catch up with the girl ahead of me, but I was fading slightly (yup.. time to take a drink!) and my new shoes were beginning to give me blisters on the backs of my heels. By the time I got to the top of the climb, they were beginning to sting quite a bit while walking uphill. Ah well.. an incentive to try and stay on my bike I suppose!

The next few downhills were new to me - I managed to stay on my bike for the first one (down the Bridle way), but walked the 4wd back up rather slowly. We had to ride the second half of Danzig again after that. Traction was pretty much impossible after so many riders cutting up the track so there was no option but to push most of it (ouchy uphills!), then another couple of downhills (Chopper, Big Weta) which I would've loved to have ridden in the dry, but unfortunately was quite muddy (see photo), so I ended up running/sliding/attempting to tripod down most of it (much to the amusement of the photographer I'm sure!).

Almost on the home straight. Another section I hadn't ridden before and involved a couple of creek crossings. OWWWWWWW! The cold water really did sting those blisters! Along a bit further, then onto the road for another km or so to the finish line. YAY!! A quick trip to get some plasters and saline from the first aid kit, and I sat back on the grass in the sun, relaxed, and reflected.

Although the course was physically quite tough, for me it was more about the mental challenge. After such a bad first encounter with the course on Thursday, I had been rather stressed about the whole thing for the past couple of days. And while it felt good to finish the race and knowing that I pushed myself physically doing so, it was overcoming the mental side of things that I was more happy about.

On a more light-hearted note, here's a pretty picture of my new shoes (taken before the race!). The reason why I decided to wear them instead of my old ones was because they actually had grip on the toes (unlike my 4 year old Pearl Izumis that have even less grip than my road shoes!). Although I also learnt today that wearing new shoes for the first time in a race situation was probably not the smartest! (I would take photos of my blisters, but that's kind of icky and gross!)


Finally, I'll end this blog post with a picture of the cake (thanks Karori New World) from the Makara Peak Supporters' 10th birthday party which I helped organise yesterday. We didn't quite organise the weather right though, and the party was relocated from the Skills Area to the Karori Park changing rooms. Nevertheless, we had a fairly good turn-out of people coming to help celebrate 10 years of Makara Peak MTB Park - thanks to everyone who showed up! :)