Lisa Morgan - Kiwi Mountain Biker

The course is now a 48km loop which is mostly retraced on an extended second loop of 67kms.  The weather, while not much warmer on the start (fresh snow on the Tararuas) was far more pleasant and the wind was head and tail.  Nicole and I headed to the start line together and tried to pick our way through the throngs to get near the front.  About 15 rows back we heard the fastest 10 second countdown in history then weaved and did some off-road riding to get through to the front.  We never quite got there and watch the lead bunch split away so settled in to the second bunch.  And it was pretty much a settled ride for me.  The hills were mostly rolling and I elected not to go out front in the head winds instead getting my workout from chatting away as we rode.

There’s not really a heck of a lot to tell about this one.  I played around in the bunch which at one stage grew to somewhere near 100 riders before splitting back to about 30 on the only climb of any real significance around 70-odd kms.  I was gearing up for a bunch finish but wasn’t planning on contesting it as we were way off the pace of the leaders and unfortunately got boxed in up the final climb just a few kms from home.  I finally had to do some real work!  Jumped on a group that came past me and finished 10th.  Nothing like the killer effort for Tour of the Bay, but definitely a fun day out.

I have to say though, I was pretty disgusted with some of the riding.  I’m no hug-the-gutter rider but the amount of not just crossing the centre line, but literally riding on the wrong side of the road would have had half the field disqualified in formal racing conditions.  Every time traffic came the bunch had to squeeze back in to the lane causing all sorts of problems.  And for every crash there would have been a dozen near misses.  And people, please, if you drop your chain off the front in to the frame, change gear to big ring and pedal to ride it back on!

One thing that did come out of the race however, is the discovery that, post car vs. bike, my frame is cracked.  In fact, the whole back end is toast - just not the sort that tastes good with strawberry jam.  So now we’re on the hunt for a midget frame to replace it with.  I’ll keep you posted on that.

On Saturday the weather packed up.  It was cold, windy and raining.  I figured it wouldn’t be much better for Sunday.  Couple that with my memories of Belmont riding (4wd and farmland on exposed hilltops covered in sheep poo) I was figuring the first goal would still be achievable, but the second might be more evasive.  Cue beautiful dawn!

It was an absolutely mint day!  I unpacked all my winter gear and left it at home.  This was more like it.

With half an hour to go before the race it became clear that I was racing solo.  Easy points?  Not on this course!  The U19 boys were good to me on the start line making a gap smack in the middle of the front row.  Starting with these guys has been a highlight this year - it’s great to start in a bigger bunch, and they’re awesome guys. 

I’d promised myself no warm up and no bolting off the start line - I was after a fun day on the bike just nice and chilled.  When the hooter went I managed to control myself for about 3 seconds before cranking it up to chase the 4 boys that had gone out hard - I’d been told the climb to the singletrack was steep but hadn’t gone to check it out for myself so I was a tad shocked to see a wall in front of me!  Rivalling the Karapoti warm up climb it was a good opportunity to practice steep climbing but putting the hammer down up there (it was either that or walk) was a bit killer with no warm up - d’oh… I spent the whole of Danzig singletrack climb trying to recover!  I went in to it about 3rd or 4th amongst the boys and then backed off the throttle.  I expected a train of lads to come squeezing past but it seemed I wasn’t the only one hurting so early on.  I sat in and spun away just enjoying the singletrack, leaving passing room where it was available. 

I dunno what happened to those boys but they weren’t coming past. Iain Painten eventually came past leading the charge for M1, with 2nd and 3rd about 30 seconds behind wheel to wheel.  Some of the corners demanded some good skills to retain traction and momentum around them and I was loving doing this somewhere different.

At the top I had a bit of a rest and treated myself to some ventolin.  The downhill gave me the final rest I needed and I started to feel pretty good again.  I do know better as an asthmatic than to push like that without warming up, but sometimes it’s just gotta be done…

The downhill was steep and wide open, and got steeper on the way down (yee haa!) before abruptly turning back up - just as steep (oooowww!) - then back for another lap up Danzig.

At the top this time we continued along the ridge on farmland in the lightest winds I’ve ever experienced up there.  There’s a whole bunch of pinch climbs up here and I LOVE pinch climbs so I was out of the seat attacking them in a nice big gear then rolling along til the next one.  Then next descent was another open and fast one with a wee pinch in the middle.  First time through I nailed it.  Then the descent steepened up again as we headed down (hmmm, must check pads for wear…). 

After a short roll through the bottom of the valley over bridges and through streams it was up, up, up the Trig Track - a 4wd climb starting out horribly steep, getting steeper, then a little steeper again before tailing out for a while in the middle and starting to hurt again briefly before we turned off. 

The Trig Track was what most of us were agonising about pre-race, but it was the section from there til he top of the descent again that was the real killer.  I, like most, got the jelly-legs going on up the Trig Track so the final half dozen or so steep pitches were bloody hard work.  I made the mistake of giving some of the older guys who were walking a bit of grief as I rode past them - unfortunately there were still a couple of tough, technical climbs left and they stayed with me.  All I wanted to do was bail out and walk but I’d smack talked so the only option was to hang in there. 

From the top it was the same descent again and there was just the one nasty pinch left.  I carried as much speed in to it as I could, got out of the saddle and promptly steered myself in to a clump of grass and had to run the rest (ok, I ran for about 20 seconds before slowing to a stumble).  Finally there was just the increasingly steep descent to go (again, must check pads for wear) and a last little roll across the streams up to the finish, and a wee up through the cones reminiscent of the Karapoti finish - legs threatening to cramp and all!

Congrats to Jordan Blake on his first pro-elite win taking it from Hiskey and Kendall.  Looking forward to seeing what that young man’s going to do over summer.

After prize giving there was only one thing to do - go home and lap up the sun!

So, where we left off I was barely out of hospital and will admit to being a bit nervous about what would happen next time I got on a bike.  Impact injuries and bike damage are one thing - they can all heal and be fixed.  But if what happened with my heart wasn’t a one off, well I didn’t really want to think about what that might mean for my riding.

I like to make it to races in the Bay because my sister-in-law and nephew are up there and I don’t see nearly enough of them.  Last time I saw nephew was Easter and he was just about the same height as me.  Now he’s about 3 inches taller, and still stretching (and rapidly outgrowing my old roadie).  I entered him in the 50k event yesterday and he really enjoyed it, his first road race.  He’s taking up triathlon and has just started working with a coach so I’m looking forward to seeing how he goes.

On Saturday I was tossing up between a really cruisey hour, or more structured 90 minutes.  The race wasn’t important, so I opted for the longer ride which enabled me to see the first 20kms of the course.  Flat, and easy.  The first 20-30 minutes were a bit nerve wracking waiting for pain but hoping it wouldn’t come.  Thankfully it didn’t, so I took it up a notch.  All was still ok so I added in some sprints to really get things going.  Took it close to max and no issues, so then just cruised back to the car.  HR stayed a little high on the cruise back in, but I’d developed a slight cold on Friday so wasn’t too concerned (2 months ago a flu that prevented training was a big deal.  In the light of the last couple of weeks a cold is almost insignificant).

I hung out with the family some more on Saturday evening and spent a bit of time giving nephew’s bike a check up and changing some settings to fit him a bit better.  Then just got a good night’s sleep.

Sunday dawned windy!  A real pity we didn’t have the same conditions as Saturday, but you can’t help that.  I got a start spot a bit far back so had to work to get up to the leading bunch from the start, and then stuck with them for the rest of the first hour but was struggling with the strong cross winds and a little anxious about my heart and eventually got dropped.  There were 700 in the race so I expected another bunch to come by but looking back on the long, straight roads I couldn’t see anyone apart from those who’d been spat before me.  I’ve suffered and been spat in crosswinds in the past and definitely realise now there’s something of an art to riding in a bunch in them successfully.  I kept trying to get up to where the bunch was more grouped for shelter but that meant taking the brunt of the wind and using energy trying to work up the long tail.  Certainly something to work on in future.

The next stretch was a long flat in to strong winds with no one to work with for most of it and then in to the main climb of the course, which seemed to keep going, and going, and going.  It wasn’t steep but was long, and having sat above 190bpm for about an hour and a half at that point I was feeling it.  I’d also been off the bike for the majority of 2 weeks and had done no climbing, so I accepted it for what it was.

After that the course undulated gently for a while and I managed to sit in with a few guys and get a nice rhythm going, and eventually we turned hard left and got about 20mins of really nice tailwind where we were able to wind it up to around 50 clicks.  After that we moved in to the toughest and what seemed like the longest section of the race - I started out thinking it was undulating, but after cresting hill after hill after hill after hill I realised it was just plain hilly!  There was little opportunity to work as a bunch although the same group of about 10 riders were all in contact for about an hour but we would ascend and descend a differing paces, sometimes catch on to someone during the troughs but mostly they weren’t long enough to provide any benefit.  And most of this was with head and cross winds (ie leaning over to 30+ degrees and still getting blown all over the road).  On the bright side though, I found some climbing legs and was happy with how I handled the climbs even after the real pain started to kick in.

Finally the main downhill came about - a nice couple of minutes of fairly steep and twisting road but not so twisty you couldn’t have a bit of brake-free pure-speed fun.  After that there was a bit more undulating stuff before rejoining the course where we headed out and having a flat road back to the finish.  A few small groups came flying past me but I wasn’t able to latch on to any of them.  Got hold of one for a minute or 2 but just couldn’t hang on by that stage.  I was out for about half an hour longer than expected so energy levels were well on the way down.  I thought I’d taken a squeezy but it turned out I hadn’t, so I didn’t have the extra juice to give me a kick to get home.

Word around the venue was that conditions added around half an hour to most finish times, so based on that I was pretty well spot on.  And normally I’d feel totally done in with strong winds like that but my spirits stayed high and I enjoyed the event.  I think I was just so stoked to complete a pretty big race without incident after the last couple of weeks.  With only 2 rides in 2 weeks leading up to it I’m pretty happy with the effort.  But now I’m amping to get back to a solid programme, get stronger and faster. 

Next weekend is PNP Round 4 and my goal there is just to ride.  Literally start, and finish.

See, in the past I’ve only been in A&E for other people - usually bike related accidents, but the odd health issue with the parents of course (the fact that theirs were mostly cardiac made this all the more interesting, and yet also very routine and familiar).  I’ve been once as a patient, with a pretty disastrous experience - can you say OCCULOGYRIC CRISIS (neither could the nurse).

Anyway, post car v bike last Wednesday I spent a lot of time sleeping, eating, trying to watch movies without falling asleep.  I was very sore for a couple of days, then things started to feel a bit better.  Headache still comes and goes, but that’s pretty standard (I can say that, I’m becoming something of an expert on the subject).  So on Saturday I was only asked to spend a couple of hours in the shop which gave me a chance to see how I would go on the bike.  Not quite ready to take on the road again, and the bike not being fixed yet, I met Celia to join her on her sexy new Santa Cruz Superlight’s virgin ride.  I took things pretty easy, but was clearly not as sharp as normal with a few vision and reaction problems.

I was entered in a race on the Sunday but chose not to go.  Have since heard it was cancelled due to strong winds, but I ended up not getting out at all.  On Monday I still wasn’t feeling too hot, so it wasn’t til Tuesday I picked my bike up and fitted the new bars and gave it a check over.  I headed out for an hour.  The first few minutes I felt like I’d sat on a couch for a week after being hit by a taxi, but soon settled in and started to feel good.  Eventually all the niggles started to out themselves with a bit of back, knee and hip pain which kept me off the bike again on Wednesday.

By Thursday I was amping to get in a good ride - easy, but some decent k’s.  After approximately 187* hours of rain (*possibly inflated) the sun came out on my way home, the wind was light and I was ready to ride.  And then…:

First, I forgot my bottle - fortunately I remembered a couple of minutes from home.  I’ve been a bit forgetful lately, the concussion card is getting tattered!  After I headed out again I was really conscious I wanted to keep this one nice and easy as I’d still been getting headaches.  Within a few minutes I started to feel some sharp chest pains.  I didn’t think much of it so kept riding.  As it got worse I backed off a bit then eventually stopped and decided to take off my HR strap.  After a few minutes I decided to turn home but by the time I got to the intersection where left would take me home and right would put me back out riding the pain had eased somewhat.  Given my total lack of riding in the last week, I turned right.

After just a few minutes again the pain returned and kept getting worse.  By the time I stopped I was nauseas, very short of breath and in pretty significant pain.  I turned back home again with the pain getting worse - going in to my back, up my neck and getting really really weak.  So I called home and asked someone to come meet me to pick me up while I kept riding to meet them.  By that stage I thought if I stopped again I was going to collapse - if I could keep pedalling I was still in control.

By the time Dad drove up we were a couple of minutes from an after hours medical centre so he took me straight there.  They put me on O2 straight away (oh no! undoing all my altitude simulation training!) took a history and gave me some GNT spray.  Because the spray helped (it only helps if it’s cardiac) they ran an ECG which was fairly normal.  Not surprising since the GNT had taken the pain away.  They gave me another spray then consulted the registrar at the hospital who wanted them to send me in for further tests.  Cue compulsory ambulance ride… I asked them to put the siren on but they didn’t.

At A&E they took some blood, ran another ECG and about 5 hours later sent me for a chest X-ray.  All the results were clear but the symptoms were still pretty perplexing.  I’m in the super-low risk category with no history of heart problems and no obvious reason for the onset.  The symptoms and effect of GNT all pointed to bad squishies, but test results were clear.  The conclusion was that it wasn’t likely to have been cardiac, but they couldn’t explain it with anything else either.

Plan of attack now is to hope it doesn’t happen again for another 40 years or so, but in case it does I ride in the direction of the hospital with 111 on speed dial so they can do an ECG while the pain is present.

So, like I say - never a dull moment. 

I’m off to Napier this afternoon for the Tour of the Bay with next to no preparation in my lungs or legs and a bit of trepidation over what’s going to happen next time I ride.