My first race of the 2011 season was a 4hr Twilight race at Yellomundee, which was put on by the Western Sydney MTB club. I planned to use this race as a training ride and thought it would provide a good indication on my current level of fitness and highlight areas I need to improve.
With my last race over 5 months ago, the preparation for this race was a massive organization exercise, involving the location, fitting and adjustment of my bike, lights and associated equipment.
In true form, I arrived at the event centre with the bare minimum time to complete the pre-race regime of registering, attaching lights and race number plates, setting up my feed station and throwing on my kit. With temperatures around 29 degrees and humidity above 70%, just walking around the event centre resulted in sweat just pouring of me.
I raced to the start line to catch the end of the race de-brief and squeeze my way into the front of the field.
With minimal notice, we were off and racing. It was a mad dash to the start of the single track and I managed to pull off a descent sprint start to be forth into the single track. Flying down the rough single track and comfortably holding the wheel in front, my world was turned upside down as out of the corner of my eye, I saw my water bottle go flying out of its cage.
It was decision time, do I continue without a bottle or go back. Either way I was going to lose precious time. I quickly pulled off the single track and ran back for my bottle, the bottle was located on the opposite side of the track and with a stremof riders flying along the single track I had to wait for an adequate gap to jump across the track grab my bottle and then try and rejoin the race.
Back in the race and rushing like a mad man up a short section of fire road, I managed to regain some of the place I had lost. The decision to stop, lost me over 50 positions, I quickly managed to gain back 20 to 25 positions early on, but with so much single track, I had no choice but to be patient. I pushed on trying to regain the lost time for the next two laps, but the effort of sprinting, was tolling and due to the heat, my heart rate was ridiculously high. I had no other option than to back off the intensity, or risk blowing up completely.
The 7km course was awesome with 95% of the track being single trail, with technical rocky pinch climbs, fast flowing burns, and rough winding descents.
As I was self supported for this race, I was unsure of my overall position during the race and struggled to maintain a positive metal focus or gain any rhythm in my riding. By the mid way point of the race, I was drenched in sweat and my shoes felt like wet sponges.
With the sun going down and the threat of rain in the air, I strangely gained some metal focus towards the job at hand. I continued to lap consistently and counted down the remaining laps.
On lap twelve, I thought my time was up and I would miss the 4 hour cut off for a final lap. As I came within sight of the event centre, I heard the words “one minute remaining”. With several riders following closely behind, I made the rash decision to go for another lap and passed through the transition area with 20 seconds to spare.
At this point in time, I really wasn’t keen to do another lap, but figured it would be good training. With little concern of any one chasing me down, I cruised around and had a chat with some of the other riders still on track and completing their final laps.
With 91 kilometers of single trail in the bag and over 5 liters of electrolyte / water consumed, my race was finally over. At this point in time, I had no idea where I had placed and after some quick hydration, I checked the results and was surprised to discover that I had placed a respectable 2nd place out of 59 solo entrants.
This year I have decided to post a race review and identify some race tactics that worked or tactics that I would employ next time.
RACE TACTICS
- Opening lap carry only half a water bottle and make sure its secure (Pending the lap size)
- Best to ride the track before racing, nothing worse than not knowing what’s coming up (ie technical ascents/descents or going the wrong way);
- Goes without saying, but I need to arrive at the event centre earlier, as I place allot of unnecessary stress and urgency on myself turning up late.
- Managed the effort to the conditions really well at this race;
- Need to set smaller race goals (i.e. lap time goals, focus of breathing etc. This will assist my mental determination.
I would like to thank the race organisers for putting on a well run event and Bike Bug for their continued support.
