The first Auckland Secondary Schools race is being held at Sanders Reserve, close to Aucklands maximum security jail in Pareparemo. It is a relatively small venue but has awesome facilities, including free hot showers (yeahhh baby!!).
Approximately 5 hours before race start (5am) and I was twisting and turning in bed, surprisingly not thinking about the race, but suffering from a sore ear and a really bad headache - not good.
A few hours later when the alarm went off and the family finally woke up, I managed to get out of bed and get myself ready. I didn't tell the family how I was feeling because I was so keen to race - silly male! In fairness, my little sister who is only 10 years old (last year of primary school), had got permission to race unofficially and she was really excited, so I couldn't let her down.
At around 9am we arrived to Sanders Reserve, unpacked the car and got the bikes all race ready.
I decided to go have a quick test ride around the trails and they were running so mint. The course was great - a few technical hills and a lot of technical cornering, but great fun at the same time. Even though I was started to feel a little better I knew that this wasn't going to be a walk in the park, partcilalrly geven the guys I was up against.
As everyone crowded around for race briefing, I saw old faces who have been racing these secondary school races for almost 5 years plus heaps of new ones that have never ridden a bike before - awesome turnout. My direct competitors were looking amped and ready to take out the series.
By 10am everyone was down at the bottom of the hill ready for a nice hard sprint to the top of a reasonable gravel road, before a quick turn into the single track.
One by one the groups started until it was the intermediate boys (years 10,11 and some year 12's) turn. Like I said in my other blogs because it is my first year in the intermediates I am treating the races as a learning curve before next year, where I plan to take it all out :)
3, 2, 1 Go! A loud racket as the 25 riders clip in and start to sprint off. There was no surprise to see the top 3 which included fellow R&R rider Robin Page make the single track first.
Around 20 minutes into the race and the top 5 racers were about 30-40 seconds in front of me. At the speed they were going I knew I would need a miracle to catch them. Half way through the first lap, and after a few people had withdrawn with with broken chains and blown tires, I had manged to climb to 5th place, still feeling ok.
Suddenly a friend of mine, Jason, made a move on me and manged to get past. He started to get further and further ahead of me, and at the same time things started to get worse for me. My back started to hurt (this was caused by lack of core muscle and me not keeping a straight back) and I wasn't feeling so flash again.
Somehow I manged to keep going, but I was feeling horrible. Just to make it worse I started to get the sharp stabbing pain in my ear. This race was looming as a disaster for me, but I just told myself keep going, get to the end and it won't matter what you come - it was all about finishing the race now.
20 minutes later I finally reached the finish line feeling totally wrecked!
While I was happy just to have finished, I was annoyed with myself that my core was weak and even in my decision to race.
I wasn't overly disappointed that I didn't get a placing, and in fairness to me, everyone looked tired with heaps of people having a bad race just like me. It seemed more like a battle of attrition.
My little sister had a great race, even surprising heaps of secondary school students after she got 3rd place (only being 10minutes off 1st) - watch out New Zealand! I believe we have the next world champ in the making.
Next race will be good for me - I know it. All I have to do is train hard and prepare for the unexpected. This race was definitely another learning curve.
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