Eastern Express - 16 December 07
Last summer was hot too, but my races were all done in an hour and a half so it’s fair to say I’ve never really been tested in the heat. It’s better to find out now so we can start planning for fuelling/feeding/hydration when the key races kick in.
During pre-race on Saturday conditions were really warm and muggy. It had also rained over night so the trails were greasy and not riding anything like they do in the dry. I spent an hour just playing around doing little bits of the course here and there to get my eye in. The main changes I was hoping for was a drop in humidity, and dry trails if it didn’t rain over night again. Thankfully a sea breeze rolled in later in the afternoon which thinned the air out a bit and on Sunday morning the clouds had lifted. Humidity and asthma don’t play well together. It hadn’t rained either, and a quick reccy of the first part of the course for a warm up revealed nice dry trails. Wicked!
A whole lot of the usual suspects were in the Bay for the race, in open women that included Nina, Michelle and Nik Leary. Sonia Hill was there too, KC made the trip up and Hayley Robertson dusted off her riding shoes, Rose Johnstone capped off the line up.
We had a mass start for the 40k’er (which I joined in on this week!) which kicked up a huge cloud of dust until we got around the first bend and the field started to spread out. I quickly hopped on Michelle’s wheel and stayed just on it in to and through the first section of singletrack. That popped us out on to a gravel road climb where Nik passed me and I followed her and Michelle to the summit - the climb wasn’t steep, but was fairly long and energy sapping. After the grassy ridgeline we went in to a track called ‘ledge’ - appropriately named as it was pretty narrow (this coming from someone who thinks Makara is plenty wide for passing…) and had a drop off on the side. Following that was a fence climb and switch-backy downhill in to another short, gentle climb before Dam Canyon - a nice downhill that we’d ridden on Saturday. It was flowing much better in the dry and had some cool little steep drops that were a bit like what you see from the top of a climb on a rollercoaster right until you start going over - way fun :o)
Following that we went in to what I felt was the toughest part of the course with climbs just long enough to take it out of you and not quite enough recovery time. It was also really hot. This was followed by some flat track, which is definitely not a strength of mine. On the brakes, off the brakes, shift up, shift back down, eyes open to see where the twisty track would go next… we came out of that and in to a steep climb (’Wahoo’) where I saw I was within 30-50m of Michelle and Nik who were still going wheel to wheel. The climb was tough and some were walking parts of it but I like to back my climbing so gutsed it out before entering a nice downhill (’Switchback’) which we rode as an uphill last year - much more fun down!
This section dropped us out in to a marshal and first aid point - I didn’t hear about any major problems so hopefully they had a quiet day. We then had a short flat road section before a short but technical climb. I picked the wrong line and had to jump off, run a few steps up and jump back on. The course was mostly undulating from here to the end of the lap so I was focusing on maintaining a good pace, climbing well and staying smooth on the downhill sections to retain as much momentum as possible. There had been one guy riding either just ahead or just behind me since the long gravel climb and he’d been behind me for a long time but as we crossed in to lap 2 I eased off up the climb a little and he got past me. I found some more energy when I caught site of Nik and Michelle again and worked my way through the singletrack. I felt myself fading up the gravel but again saw Nik near the top but when I tried to pull something more out for the grassy ridgeline I couldn’t find the power to get any real pace.
I was flying on the downhills by now, but losing valuable time on the climbs. The tough section out the back felt even harder this time around. By around 2 1/2 hours I was really feeling the heat. I’d chosen to wear a camelback given the heat and length of the race but I was just craving water and felt reluctant to keep drinking the juice even though I knew I needed to stay hydrated - I just felt all sugared out in the heat. After the Wahoo climb and Switchback downhill I was pretty well cooked. I attempted the better line in the short, sharp section again but was out of gas to get up it. After that, I felt like I was pretty much just trying to keep moving forward to get across the line to get to some water. I lost 15 minutes on the 2nd lap, probably most of it in the second half of it, and crossed the line in 4th (Sonia had DNF’ed, Nina took the win by a few minutes over Michelle with Nik close behind) in 3 hours 7 minutes - long race eh?.
I was pretty happy with my first couple of hours, the rest we can just put down to heat training. After finishing I got 3 bottles of water and drank half of each before tipping the rest over my head. Then I went and jumped in the river! I can’t recall ever feeling so hot in my life. I felt like I was cooking from the inside.
