Race day dawned very cloudy and a very slight drizzle that Dirk recons he felt, with No rain since xmas the roads were fast but slippery we had a 47km race in front of us and everyone thought record pace was on. The course was mainly 4 wheel drive tracks and quite fast we climbed for 34km with lots of false flat and steep pinches and lots of river crossings that would have been handy to know lines through, a short 13km down hill that was super fast was to follow with very deep river crossings. Dirk and myself were told to run the last few crossings as the river was deep so we ran about the last 15 to 20 crossings as we didn’t no where the end was...
There was a bit of mess up with the start of the day the Marathon that was ment to start at 8am over the same course started 45mins late as one of the busses crashed into a ditch after dropping half the runners off. We were not told of the delay until we were on the start line at 10.45 with the race due to start at 11.
I had my pre race drink mix and caffeine at 20 past 10 and we didn’t get going until 11.30 so an hour and 10 minutes of caffeine doing its thing on the start line was not ideal.
I had a strong start with me and Dirk doing a bit of team tactics after pushing hard on the 1st few climbs we let dirk roll away and I sat on the other guys and let them chase him. After a few mins Dirk was coming back to us at a rate of knots his bars had come loose and Brad Hudson attacked and I chased Brad as Dirk fixed his bars. Dirk got back in and went up the road again this time I let him go again waited for a hill and used my roadie instincts to attacked past Brad to join Dirk at the front of the race, we worked very hard together trying to get a gap on Brad but to Brads credit he wasn't slipping to far away. After a good 20mins Dirks bars come loose again and he left me on my own at this point I thought I could and would win the race, after another 20mins of been alone I cracked about 5km from the top of the hill 30mins from the end... Brad and Dirk went by and I was left alone on struggle street to defend 3rd place with a Jet lagged Anton Cooper and Tom Bradshaw somewhere behind I had to drain the tank to hold them off.
Pretty gutted at the end of the race cracking 30mins from the end and having a 30min delay to the start maybe this was my day? After feeling pretty strong early on, ahwell it was the same for most.
Dirk went on to win and break Anton Coopers 2012 record by 53 seconds and Brad rolled in a few seconds behind him and I held on to 3rd.
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| L-R Anton Cooper, Me, Brad Hudson, DP, (big-dog racing) Tom Bradshaw |
A massive thanks has to go out to Southsure Insurance who Sponsored NZXC for the weekend it was huge of them to get us to one of the biggest mountain bike races of the year in NZ Thanks
Also Dan and Haylee for the hospitality
Tineli for the primo Southsure Insurance kit.
and Sam for getting us there stress free
Cheers
Carl
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