Oceanias 2013 Hobart, Australia

Late Oceania Update I have been full on since getting home with work and finalizing plans for Europe.
The NZXC crew still minus Katie headed down to Tasmania in Australia mid week to get on the track before the race Saturday. The track wasn’t very technical but with a bit of speed it was pretty slippery, the Up hill was a whole lot of switch backs on a hard pack ground with little rocks and loose dirt to skate on. The Decent was a hard pack with loose dirt and rocks which soon ripped up to be a blinding slippery white dust. I didn’t do any hard laps of the track but did hit the decent as hard as I could and got pretty good at it. Not that it helped my race as you will read.

Race day I had a feeling that I told the crew I hadn’t had for a while, I didn’t no if it was good or bad, but boy I was primed up wanting a good one. The night before I was told there were only 8 in the race so I was always going to get some good points that I was after. Race day there was only 7.. all of us on the start line were pretty disappointed about that, but it was good for us we had spent the money getting there and will be rewarded with higher world rankings.

Off the Start I was good but sat back a few wheels into the first climb we started with the U23 riders this was a wee mistake because I ended up been dropped by the front 5 guys up the 1st climb, by the start of the next lap I was closing fast and got as close as un under arm stone through to the front of the race by the top of the hill 2nd lap. That was as close as I got, from this lap on the down hill became my enemy. I didn’t no what was going on but my skill to go hard on the decent was gone, I had no balance and felt really strange, by the time I got to the bottom of the hill my heart rate was at a recovery ride state?? but then I could push back to above threshold for the up and the flat stuff.

Not sure what went on but maybe a hard lap should have been done to really get the body thinking before the race, or maybe I hadn’t recovered from hard races and training in the last few weeks. Anyway finished off 4th very disappointed with how I rode but got 4th place points and more than last year so happy in that aspect :-)

Pictures Debbie Retief 

Both myself and Katie have done testing this week I’m still sitting on par with the best tests I have done and Katie’s hard work is paying off she is making massive gains and is back to results she put out before 2012 nationals, Still not quite where she wants to be but pretty bloody cool, so now she needs a bit of race hardening over the next few weeks and she will be back, 8 months after her surgery

We have booked tickets to Europe with NZXC Racing, we are traveling together to help make it cheaper and doing a 6 week stint from the 6th of May until June 17th Check out or race schedule page to see where we will be.

Cheers

Carl