2009 South Island XC Cup - Round 3

The final race of my 08/09 season took me back to where it all began. My very first "Nationals" XC race was two years ago at Coronet Peak, where I'd tagged along with R&R Sport riders Sara Macdonald and Erin Greene on their road trip to Queenstown for the first round of the 2007 Natioal MTB Series. I headed out on practise day to scope out the course and decided I'd give the Sport race a go the next day. I found it pretty difficult back then, having just gained a little bit of fitness from social mountainbiking, and after two 41 minute laps, I came in second (out of two) in Sport Senior Women, 20 minutes down from the winner. But my first taste of "serious" cross-country racing gave me the motivation to get fitter, stronger, and better. Which is what I've been trying to do the past two years since.

So today's race didn't quite go as well as I'd hoped. It was a pretty small field for the morning's races and there were only 3 Senior Women and 2 Masters Women. So all I really had to do was finish to get a podium spot. Being at 1100-1350m above sea level, I wasn't too sure how I would go at that sort of altitude, and about 20 seconds into the race, my lungs were burning, I was gasping for air, and I realised the answer to the question was: "not very well".

But anyway, I tried to keep up with the girls who slowly disappeared into the distance on the 2km climb. I had one Masters Woman behind me and my aim was to keep ahead of her for as long as possible. I passed a Masters guy ahead of me who had got off to push an uphill pinch, with a brief conversation which went along the lines of: Masters dude: "I can't breathe!!". Me: *gasp* "neither can I!" *gasp*.

By the time I hit the top of the climb some 15-20 minutes later, it was onto the fun part. From there it was pretty much all descending (with a bit of a climb about 2/3 of the way down). But I couldn't help but grin as I started on the descent. So much fun with all the berms and little jumps. In fact, that was probably the reason why I headed out on my second and third laps - just to ride the downhill again!

By the time I passed the start/finish/feedzone at the end of my first lap, I had pretty much mentally checked out of the race. It was the last race of the season, I wasn't going to get any better than third place at the rate I was going, and although my lungs had recovered during the downhill, I was reluctant to go as hard on the climb on the next two laps. I knew I could do sub-30 minute laps at a fairly sifty pace, so I took it pretty cruisy on the second and third laps. I think I got a bit faster on the downhills though - again grinning like an idiot for the first few metres before putting on my Very Serious (TM) race face on so I could concentrate on getting down in one piece.

I crossed the finish line in third, 6 minutes behind second, and just over a minute ahead of the Masters Woman who I'd tried (albeit halfheartedly) to keep ahead of throughout the race. Then we headed to the cafe and I got myself a beer and some wedges. Mmmmmmmm awesome recovery food. I figured: last race, hey why not?

So that wraps up my season. I'll be out and about doing various other events over winter and will decide a bit later what my aims are for next season.

I'd like to finish up this blog post by thanking a few people:

• R&R Sport (both Wellington and Dunedin) for their continued support over the years - of course it helped that Scotty has worked for the company on and off for the past decade, but they've done an awesome job of taking care of me irrespective of my spousal connection - cheers guys and girls!

• Lisa Morgan for coaching me the past couple of seasons. Thanks for all the work you've put into my programmes :)

• Mike Stylianou at Hyperformance Hardware for general Santa Cruzey goodness and advice (my Superlight has been awesome to race on!), and for sponsoring my "Santa Cruzettes" team at the Wild Wellington 12 hour race.

• The Welly riding crew - too many to name but I'm sure you know who you are ;) - thanks for all the rides and stuff. I'll miss you down here in Dunedin.

• It is too cliche to thank my husband? Hmmm. Not sure. Well, thanks to Scotty anyway.

So.. over and out. Until the next race/ride/interesting riding adventure.. (probably next weekend..).