2009 Milton Jailbreak

Throughout the past week, I was umming and ahhing about doing the Milton Jailbreak (35km or 50km options), or Round 2 of the Dunedin winter multisport series (2.5km run, 15km mtb, 5km run). Up until Saturday afternoon, I still hadn't decided on what event I was going to do. By Saturday evening (as we ate far too much food at a potluck dinner), I had finally made up my mind - the 35km "Rec" option at the Milton Jailbreak.

The main reason behind my logic in doing the shorter course of the two - My right knee. Turns out doing a 12 hour race solo on a singlespeed isn't good on your knees.. especially since I might have already had issues with the tracking of my kneecap but have never noticed it before. Around 25km into our 35km ride last week, it began to play up again, and an attempt at a run during the week started to hurt as well. After some interweb banter on Vorb (where the Vorbii told me to see a physio), I texted my friend Ash Rohloff who runs Body Logic Active Rehabilitation in Dunedin.

Apparently it's something to do with the right IT band pulling my kneecap outwards as I straighten my knee. An incredibly trustworthy internet diagnosis tells me it's patellofemoral syndrome (but don't hold me to that.. or ask me how to pronounce it!). I saw Ash on Saturday and he kindly pummeled my right thigh and hip with his arms and showed me a couple of stretches to do. Hopefully, by doing the right thing (i.e., me following instructions and actually stretching), we can get this sorted out so it doesn't bother me too much in the future. Fingers crossed eh.

So, back to the race report. I woke up various times on Saturday night to hear the rain falling on our roof, and was hoping the weather would be nicer in the morning. Sunday morning rolled by and it was still raining. Ah well. We decided to head down to Milton anyway and if the race was cancelled, to head another 15 minutes further south to Balclutha to visit Scotty's parents. As we were driving out of Dunedin, the weather looked like it was getting better. By the time we hit Milton, we could even see patches of blue sky! Yippee! Looks like the race was on!

The race began with a mass start and about 2km of fairly flat gravel road. Then the climbing began.. and lots of it! In fact, although the gravelled foresty roads could perhaps be described as covering "rolling terrain", it was certainly hard work! The first half hour or so, I felt like was coughing and spluttering like a chain smoker (apologies to any smokers I offend) as my lungs tried to get used to breathing in cold air and being pushed at "race pace", which I hadn't done for a few months. About 45 minutes in, I finally found my legs and my breathing had settled a bit. The terrain may have actually become more "rolling" by that stage although I was beginning to lose track of how many uphills I'd been up! I was keeping an eye out on my speedo for the distance covered, occasionally checking out the view, but in general, felt like I was going pretty hard (hur hur..) the whole race, and didn't feel like I was taking any breaks throughout. In a way, that was what made it a good race for me - I felt like I was giving it all I could for pretty much the entire course. I was quite surprised to turn onto a sealed road at the 25km mark - into the biggest gear possible and away I went. I'll admit I drafted behind a couple of guys who were doing the 50km course (cheers guys!) for a couple of km, until we turned onto another gravel road with a 3-4km stretch to the finish and I couldn't keep up any more. The goal for the final few kms was to keep going as hard as I could and not get passed!. I was very relieved when I crossed the finish line and achieved that.

So all up, a pretty good race. Although I'm not as strong on the uphills as I was over summer, and my level of fitness is a bit (a lot?!) lower, it's quite cool getting out there and putting your best effort into something and come away feeling pretty happy with the how the race went in general. I was the first woman home in the 35km race, and am keeping an eye out on the website for results to see how I placed overall.

Cheers to the Milton Karate Club for putting on a great race - even though they aren't mountainbikers, they run the event as their major fundraiser - how awesome is that?! Congrats also to R&R Sport rider Tony Hogg who won the 50km event (and passed me at a great speed of knots on his 29er on an uphill!).

Next race: Round 2 of the Southland MTB Club XC Winter series on the 7th June. (I have a theory that if I put it on my blog, then I'm more likely to commit and actually do it!).