After a nerve racking drive late on Saturday night we (the Waiariki Mountainbike squad) made it to Nelson. The boys brightly decided we had enough gas to make it to Nelson and didn’t need to make the trip to Blenheim to fill up… so we didn’t. 75km away from Nelson the gas light flicked on they weren’t looking so confident. The van rolled down every hill in neutral and Scott drove us as gas efficient as possible, every mL of desiel was going to count so we even sacrificed our air con. Thanks to the team effort we just managed to make it! lucky?
Today the first day of racing began with an 11km hill climb up Takaka. Last year I blew up hard, not even halfway up and just ended up creeping to the top. Ever since then I wanted to race up Takaka again and do it better. Today was it, I wasn’t feeling amazing but I went as hard as I could with the legs that I have. I am pretty happy knowing I couldn’t have really gone faster on the day. National MTB champs are still two months away so there is still heaps more training and improvements to gain until our MTB squad will be hitting form. My time was 32min30sec which wasn’t too bad – placing me 6th in U23 age group and 15th over all.
In the afternoon we had a 48km circuit race. It was the scariest thing EVER!! Everyone was loose as all over the show and there were way to many “close calls”. Racing on the dirt is definitely a lot safer. Monique, Katie and I all just finished with the bunch and since there was no break-a-ways ahead our GC didn’t change. All up it was a good day at the office and John would be pleased to know we have been taking our nutrition seriously for this event, eating as many lollies possible to replace our lost blood sugars – I think it’s working well.
Tomorrow morning we have a 70km ‘Queen of the Mountains’ road race then a 19km flatish time trial in the afternoon. Good times…
HA HA thats funny that the desiel was way low – could have been a spin to town for the team. All the best Sam, stay safe for the MTB nats.