The N-Duro winter race series is an annual event held in Rotorua every winter, it usually has 3 races in the series and 3 different lengths, short, medium and long. The short is usually about 15km long, medium around 30km and the long is about 50km.
For the first race of the series dad and myself decided to take on the longer course together just to get a good experience with keeping control of what a good pace is to last 50km.
When we arrive to the event venue it wasn't very long till the race started so we had to get our things ready quickly, but of course dad was fluffing around taking forever to get ready. It was only 4 minutes before the start and dad was still talking to random strangers so I had to drag him over to the start.
The race was said to start in the next 15 seconds, It wasn't a long wait till we were on our bikes slowly and steadily making our way pass the slower people, watch a heap of people sprint off we knew that sooner or later they will burn out.
We got to our very first proper (huge) hill climb which was a forestry road which felt endless and was quite steep causing the sprinters to drop off and quite a few others to burn out. Dads plan for us was to spin up and cruise down and we will notice that we can go harder for longer, it was definitely difficult at times though cause I just wanted to burst off.
we got about 20km in and we were both going at a good pace, it felt quite nice that we were pacing our self not causing us to burn out.
At the 35km mark dad was looking quite sore from cramps and told me to go and sprint the last part of the race, so I hit the gas expecting to sprint 15km little did I know that the course wasn't 50km, it apparently was cut sort to around 43km so it was an easy sprint to the finish.
I felt pretty proud that I had survived that long course and with the new things on my bike (handlebars, seatpost) I felt like a rocket. Dad came in about 2minutes after me which i was really happy about.
Can't wait to do the 2nd race.
