2 weekends ago saw bad weather and as a result two mountain bike events were cancelled in Rotorua. This was a great call, as we collected the course markings on Monday and Tuesday we soon found an obstacle course - trees everywhere, new lakes had formed on the tracks and many slips to deal with, to ride that day would have been dangerous. The weekend free of racing allowed for some indoor cricket so it was not all terrible.
Golden wedding anniversary celebrations
The following weekend was spent celebrating Kath and Gordon Smith (Carl's grandparents) 50th wedding anniversary. a great day full of lots of lovely food, and an interesting training session which resulted in the state highway flooding obstructing our path home and leading to some bush bashing. Pretty amazing what mother nature was throwing down that weekend.
beside the road/river, up the bank full of goarse and long grass - hating every metre
25minutes later: the other side - (4wd's had water over the bonnets in the middle)
N-Duro Race 2
A hard weeks training later, the hardest yet and it brings us to the N-duro today. Today was again double silver we are making a habit of finishes up in the same position.
Carl’s race – Open Men
- Carl Jones – + :57
- Sam Shaw – + 2:24
The day started of with alot of pain after a new core workout on friday and a hard week of training with the race to finish off the last hard full week of training. I was very nervous warming up as I was hurting but couldn't get the heart rate up but I new now it is all or nothing.
Race started and I found my self slipping off the front, however after the 1st few mins Dirk came around me and the race was on he took off and me and Patrick Avery were the only ones able to go with him, it only lasted a little while untill we were all riding by our selves, I had quite an up and down race but I was still fast even when I wasn't firing on all the clinders. I had a battle with Sam Shaw for most of the race going back and fwd. Dirk and myself could see each other a few times in the race and we pushed the pace even harder. Every thing is just slipping into place nicely now and I am feeling really quick, so all is good.
Carl
katies Race – Open Women
- Annika Smail – 2:18:05
- Katherine O’Neill – + 2:51
- Karen Hanlen – + 4:41
Feeling appropriately smashed from the weeks training I was getting really nervous this morning, unsure of what the race would bring and if the body could handle this session.
Warming up like Carl I was not feeling great which only increased the feeling that I would not keep pace with speedy Annika and Karen, the race however surprised me a bit.
I started off alright up with Annika and Karen, although this was short lived as I hit a really rough patch through soak hole and only just made it out the other side. From here I was on my own and when I felt good I would put hammer down which eventually paid off as I caught Karen down ‘pondy's’ and managed to finished up in 2nd place. I was unable to catch Annika, in the pursuit to do so I suffered from some intense cramp in the calf muscles even dropping me to the ground when I tried to run through the water crossing. The cramp was a result of not taking on enough water as I ran out in the Chinese menu and only had Coke from here (not the ideal drink for dehydration). I will be trying a product called Elete in the next race this will give that extra edge in hydration.
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