National Series 2011 Round 2 - Glenorchy TAS

Hobart is the coldest, windiest place I have raced to date and it escapes me how anyone could live here, let alone train here. Its December for Pete’s sake and we got snowed on at the top of Mount Wellington! After taking in a few of the sights, it was down to the serious racing.
Although it had been raining the course is mostly hardpack – no need for mud tyres. Running a Schwalbe Rocket Ron on the front and a Racing Ralph on the back, my Merida O.nine was set up for speed. The descents were tight, rough and fast so it was up to the rider to have the confidence to just let the bike run. Climbing was split into two sections – the first being a long, dead fireroad drag and the second a twisty singletrack ascent with loads of switchbacks.
I wanted a faster start this race as we let the leaders go at You Yangs and the gaps opened up too much. At the top of the first climb I was in about 4th spot and we were all still together. Jenny King and Rowena Fry were doing battle upfront while Bec Henderson, Kath O’Shea and I kept swapping positions as we attacked each other.
On the third lap I lost O’Shea’s wheel in a rough section of trail where it was difficult to get out the saddle and respond with a sprint. Henderson then also came over the top and motored past O’Shea as well. The last two laps were spent chasing O’Shea just 20 seconds in front and holding off Anna Beck who was having the ride of her life.
Finishing 5th I was still happy with my ride. Sure my position was worse than last round be to top 5 finished just over two minutes adrift of Fry which is a great sign for women’s XC racing. It was definitely a battle all the way with the positions not decided until right on the finish line – awesome stuff!
Special mention goes to my Rockshox XX forks. These babies are 12 months old and I feel they are maturing like a fine wine. I’ve been getting more confidence in adjusting my bike settings and have been enjoying finding that sweet spot. If I told you what it was I’d have to kill you but it was just unbelievable how they were soaking up the hits out there.
Sponsors…where would I be without you? Merida, Flight Centre, SRAM, For The Riders, Shotz, Schwalbe, Adidas, Jet Black, Lazer…group hug guys! Merry Christmas!

National Series 2011 Round 1 - You Yangs VIC

After having a bit of time away from racing I was pretty excited to be jetting off to one of my favourite tracks at the You Yangs, just outside Geelong. All the locals swear that it never rains there, but every time I turn up it buckets down and this year was no exception. Cutting laps of the track on Thursday and Friday was less like work and more like just having fun on the bike. I put a 2.25 Nobby Nic on the front because…well I thought it would be super-fun on the descents, and I was right! There was not a lot of climbing but it was very technical so you had to ride at 95 percent so you had a bit extra in reserve to get up onto a rock ledge or through a garden of boulders.
The Saturday of the race it was all blue skies and 20 degrees – fantastic conditions. With a long open starting loop it was fast from the gun but at least there was time to sort ourselves out before we hit the singletrack. Two girls went out fast and were not seen again. It was an advantage to start fast as it was difficult to pass on the singletrack. National champ Rowena Fry was sitting in front of our group and I was pacing off her. By the second lap though I was feeling pretty strong and pulled in front of her, only to have my spare kit detach itself from my bike and almost get tangled in my spokes. Regrouping I settled in again behind Row and overtook her in the feedzone. On the first technical climb though I zigged instead of zagged and lost traction to end up behind Row again. Finally I passed and made it stick, riding strong on the fourth and final lap. Enjoying the fast and technical descent I finished third and very satisfied.
A week later and I’m back in Victoria for the Jeep 24 hour teams race. On the way down to Lorne from Melbourne it was too much of a temptation and Boothy and I pulled in for a muddy but super two hours at the You Yangs. Kicking back at the motel contemplating another weekend of smashing it up on the trails we both acknowledged how lucky we are to be able to do this. Living the dream!

Fight your way back...24 hours at a time

So why did I decide to line up at the 24 hour solo? I got asked that a lot during the hectic weekend that was the combined Scott24 and Solo 24 hour World Champs. Racing (I use that term loosely) a 24 hour event had been in the back of my mind for a while – one of those ‘must do before I die’ boxes to tick. There is also some conjecture in Cross country circles as to how tough the event really was. So you ride around in circles for a whole day really slowly, versus pinning it up every climb until your lungs explode for a couple of hours. In the beginning, I just wanted to know what it felt like.

On a racing expedition to Perth for the Dwellingup 100 I spent a little more time than is healthy with current World Solo Champion Jason English. His relaxed manner and apparently lack of mental deficit convinced me that normal people DO race these things. The off-hand suggestions that I should give it a crack worked their way into my subconscious like those nasal-delivery-technology ads, and I wondered what it would be like to ‘last longer’.

The tipping point would come from a man not many of you may have heard of though. His name is Cris Harris. Cris lives on the Sunshine Coast with his partner, Rachel, and daughter, Meg. He’s never stood on a World Champs podium or pulled on a green and gold jersey – but he is a star. I read his story on the Black Dog Institute website, detailing his fight with depression and campaign to raise money and awareness by completing the 24 hour solo. It struck a chord with me as I, like Cris, battle daily with the ‘black dog’ of depressive illness. Cris’ website, called ‘Fight your way back’ was such an accurate description of living with depression. (http://www.fightyourwayback.wordpress.com/ )

“Rachel and I were discussing a name for the project and when we came up with ‘Fight Your Way’ back, we just knew it was the right one”, Cris told me.

It encompasses my, and obviously Cris’, attitude that recovery from depression is not a passive process. In the age of anti-depressant drugs, those who don’t fully understand the illness and its treatment may think that taking a pill, sitting back and letting it work its magic is all that’s required. The reality is quite different with medication only working for some, and in a very subtle way which just takes the edge off what could otherwise be a steep descent. The initial stages of treatment may also see a worsening of the condition as people battle the side-effects such as anxiety, dizziness, sleeplessness, involuntary yawning fits, while not feeling relieved of their mood disorder at all.

Exercise has been identified as one of the most effective treatments for depression (a fact sheet can be found at www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/docs/ExerciseandDepression.pdf) and is definitely one of the drivers behind my resumption of training after deviating down a different path. In high school I was a training junkie and represented the region in Cross Country running and soccer. After moving away from home for university the underlying, undiagnosed depression I had suffered for 3 years worsened. I ceased exercise, took up smoking, excessive drinking and lost the person I had been. It was only when I fell pregnant and had my daughter that I was motivated to regain my health and take control of my illness instead of it controlling me.

Ironically, when a bout of severe depression hits it can make people lose interest in exercise, which is one of the effects identified by Cris during his campaign. He writes on the FYWB website:

“When my depression started two and a half years ago I was moderately fit. The depression took away my motivation and enjoyment from exercising and so that ground to a halt. About 18 months later when I was at my worst, it was a struggle for me to even walk up one flight of stairs. That brought me to tears, as I had been extremely fit at other times in my life, and was the turning point for me.”

Clearly not a man to do things by halves Cris embarked on the arduous exercise of training and planning for the Solo 24 Hour World Championships. The journey has been full or ups and downs he confessed to me in Canberra, but when I stopped by the pits on Sunday morning Cris was still going, with a huge grin on his dial. Sure, he was so delirious he didn’t recognise me at the time, but I’m betting he wasn’t the only one that day.

My race ended early, with me vetting myself out after voiding my rib warranty for the second time this year. Despite that I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it and it won’t be the last one I line up for. I can’t say I’ve settled the debate on whether XC or 24 hour is the toughest, but I can now compare the two from a position of experience as one who readily courts pain in all its forms.

So the next time you pass someone on the trail, pause for a moment and wonder about their motivation for getting out there. We throw around lines such as “Riding is life” but for some it might be less of a metaphor. If a riding buddy starts skipping the weekly session or seems a bit less enthusiastic than usual take the initiative to ask “are you ok?” (see http://www.ruokday.com.au/ ). It’s also a huge rap for the MTB scene as a supportive community which entices people to be active, no matter what their background or goals.

Dwellingup 100, Western Australia

One of the perks of this ‘job’ is the opportunity to see parts of the country you might otherwise have gone your whole life without visiting. I was lucky enough to receive an invite via Shotz to race the Dwellingup 100 MTB marathon, about an hour outside Perth. WA was the only state in Australia I hadn’t ticked off my list and I had been looking for an excuse so off on another adventure I went!

Arriving in Perth it reminded me of a newer, shinier, less crowded Brisbane. The river was bigger and bluer and I was aware of that alleged Brisbane-ite inferiority complex that Victorians refer to. As a guest of Trievents I was chauffeured to some very comfortable accommodation in the city where I quickly put together my steed and went exploring.

You can tell a lot about a city by its bike paths…and Perth really loves cycling! The cycle paths are wide, well marked and go on forever, all the way out to Fremantle, which is where I headed to see a West Coast sunset. Cottesloe is definitely somewhere to head for a lazy Sunday ride and have coffee overlooking the ocean. Unfortunately it was Wednesday evening so I headed back to the apartment before it got dark. My riding partner, Jason English, and his wife Jen were arriving at midnight so we could head south the following morning.

It wasn’t completely a holiday and Jason and I were put to work, if you can call it that. We visited five primary schools in 2 days to show off our equipment, answer questions about cycling and do a few drills and races with the kids. Dave from Trievents was keen to promote the kids 14km race and the principals were aiming to get more kids riding to school instead of being driven. It’s amazing what a difference an interested teaching faculty makes with one school having about 15 mountainbikes bought especially for students to use! Can’t imagine what that took to get past the P&C.

Tony Tucknott is the man with the plan when it comes to Dwellingup and has been instrumental in getting the race up and running. He drove us out to the Turner’s Hill section of the track, which would be an 11km timed section during the race with $100 for the fastest male and female. This loop is some of the best singletrack you will ride – fast, flowy with some doubles, gap jumps and log rides thrown in for fun. Once you got used to the pea-gravel surface in WA and the 2-wheel drift you could just hook in and enjoy. It was so good we did it twice the rode back to the chalet to continue the carbo load.

Friday morning we hit a couple of loops of the 14km of singletrack that was to be used for the kids race. With nothing too technical they were sure to have a blast, as we did, getting in some dirt time before riding to the next school presentation. The weather was stunning, if a little cool, with not a cloud in the sky. Race day promised to be perfect conditions as opposed to the deluge the racers faced last year.

Race day and we rolled down from our accommodation, 2 minutes from the start line and joined the 800 other participants. In only the second year of the event it was a fantastic roll up and promises to grow quickly each year. With less climbing and bitumen that the epic and more single track I figured the race times would be about the same. I’d only been back training for a week after a break so I was theoretically fresh which was confirmed by my heartrate going through the roof for the first half of the race.

Last years winner Stephanie Russell went out fast and I didn’t catch her until about 20k. We then rode together, pushing each other all the way to Turner’s Hill. I knew I would have to get into the singletrack first as with her local knowledge Steph definitely had the advantage. Once in there I hit cross country pace and tried to get as big a gap as possible to hopefully get the fastest lap time, but worried that I might blow up and not make the race finish.

The course was challenging but fun with some longer steep loose climbs but plenty of winding singletrack to encourage forgiveness. Some of the surfaces are like nothing I have ever seen though, with a smooth clay section where guys were just binning it after putting a fraction too much weight on the front wheel. No one told me about the ‘deep’ pea gravel which caused a few anxious moments descending, then required me to muster my sand-riding skills to get out of.

The weather warmed up toward the second half of the race but I found the combination of Shotz gels and electrolyte tabs, again, the perfect combination. I have finally decided that I am too much of a gumby to eat a bar or any solid food while I am racing and having found a gel flavour I like, I don’t stress about my nutrition like I used to. While Jason was riding a Dual-suspension I was on the Merida o.nine hardtail and don’t think the course is rough enough to make you beg for some more travel. A DS would make the Turners hill section a lot more fun though with some A-lines that were too harsh on the hardtail.

Pushed by Steph all the way I took the win, only five minutes ahead. A former Highland Fling winner, Steph is a quality racer and there is a wealth of cycling talent over here, which suffers the tyranny of distance from some of the major competitions on the east coast. Hopefully with races like the Dwellingup 100 more people will make the journey west to see if they can match it with the locals. WA certainly has a lot to offer on and off the race track and I, for one, will be back!

As always, thanks to all my sponsors: Merida, Flight Centre, For The Riders, Schwalbe, Adidas, Nightrider, Lazer, Jetblack, SRAM and especially Shotz for this opportunity.

An Epic Weekend

Well there was no rest for the wicked and after a week back at home getting my bearings I packed the car and headed up to Hidden Vale on Saturday morning for the pre-Flight Centre Epic festivities. The event, which began with the classic 100k-ish race became so popular it is now spread over 2 days with a 20km, 50km and kids events on Saturday and the half- and full-epic on Sunday.

I was a bit hesitant about racing on the Saturday, knowing I would need all my powder dry to bring it home in the 100k, but I was also looking forward to riding the Hidden Vale single track. I’d forgotten how sharp and rocky it is out there but it is incredible how much work has been put into the trails and I had a super time. Its much more fun riding it without having punched out 100ks before-hand. Taking the win I refueled for the next day and hung around with the team until we headed to our accommodation in Toowoomba.

In stark contrast to the 38 degree conditions of the 2009 Epic, I was struggling to ‘warm up’ on the crisp 3 degree morning of the 2010 edition. Initially following team mate AJs routine of riding up and down a hill, the cold windy descent was killing me. The rest of my warm up was spent standing as still as possible in the sun, waiting for the sensation to return to my fingers.

The race start was quite fast as groups formed on the road sections and everyone settled in. My main competitor, Naomi Hansen, rode beside me until the Ma Ma Creek singletrack and I did not see her again until the end of the race. Mercifully we had dry conditions this year which made the course extremely fast, and coupled with the cooler weather the race record was definitely under threat.

Arriving at half-way quite quickly I received another bidon and camel-back from feeder Aaron and continued on feeling fairly comfortable. I was looking around for groups to ride with on the long, windy road sections but unfortunately I spent most of the race alone. The legs were a bit flat after the previous months racing but I kept a bit in reserve for a personal objective – to ride the steep Laidley Gap section of the course. In my first mountain-bike race (2006 half epic) I saw that hill and thought “that’s impossible to ride…I will never do it”. There’s a good deal of personal satisfaction in being able to conquer it now and it always looks impressive!

Having the race lead it’s sometimes difficult to stay motivated, knowing how hard to ride without having someone to chase. Doing some calculations at the third checkpoint I thought if I could go under 5 hours for the race that would be a good benchmark so I pushed on for the final quarter of the race. Riding the single-track at the end was far less smooth that the previous days effort but I made it across the line in 4 hours 55 mins, taking out the race.

Now came the best part – sitting on the lawn at Spicers Hidden Vale, eating burgers, watching the sun set and listening to other participants trade stories of their days adventure. Its such a great atmosphere and really brings home to me why I love mountain-biking so much.
Thanks to Chungy from Advance Traders for the rockstar treatment, and as usual to all our sponsors for the support: Merida, Flight Centre, Shotz, Schwalbe, Lazer, Adidas, SRAM, Nightrider, Jet Black.

Europe 2010

How to condense a month of travel into one blog post? Europe was ‘big’. While the concept sounds exotic the reality of dragging a bike around Europe from race course to race course is not without its challenges and can be quite fatiguing.

World Cup – Champery, Switzerland

Flying into Geneva it was great to be greeted by a familiar face in my friend Vaughan. He and his wife had recently moved to Gryon in Switzerland, a beautiful little ski village in the Alps. It certainly allowed me to ease into my travel, being chauffeured around, meals cooked and generally being well-taken-care-of. With the race venue at Champery only 30 minutes drive away it was also very convenient – a point to remember when the World XC championships are hosted there next year.

They are really spoiled for choice with riding – mountains in Gryon, patches of challenging single track, or roll down the hill for a flat ride around lake Geneva and into France. The Champery course was one of the most technical I have every ridden…and that was before it rained for two days! It was interesting seeing the top riders choosing the run some of the lines as it was safer and sometimes much faster in the wet.

Unfortunately the morning of the race I woke up with another terrible virus, unable to be more than a minute away from the bathroom. Through some careful maneuvering I managed to get to the course and decided to start the race out of principle. I assure my host that I would do one lap and if I felt well enough would do a second and then pull out. As usual I had to go one better and managed a third before I almost passed out on the track a couple of times and was lapped by the leaders. The next 24 hours were spent under a doona, shivering, sweating and with a pounding headache and the effects of the virus were still being felt a few days later when I landed in Italy.

World Cup – Val di sol, Italy

Val di sol is a stunning little town outside Trento in North West Italy. It is somewhere I could live very easily with narrow country roads, lush forests and that small village feel where no one seems in a rush. Sharing accommodation with four other riders from Australia, it was nice to be able to converse in English as there was very little spoken around us. We had one day of rain but the track was nice and dry by race day and we had some beautiful warm weather otherwise. Not as technical as the Swiss track, the course was still difficult due to the steep, repetitive climbing – definitely a granny-ring affair!

I had learned some lessons at Champery with regard to starting a race with 120 other riders and managed to get a good position after the start lap. Going as hard as I could on the climbs my aim was to be able to finish the race without getting lapped or pulled out, which is not as easy as it sounds. It was a relief to hear the bell on the final lap after the disappointment of the previous race and I finished 79th. An odd highlight was having a tussle with Chengyuan Ren, a former Chinese national champ, Olympic representative and world cup winner. I was in good company!

World marathon champs – St Wendel, Germany

Another two 8-hour travel days later I arrived in Ottweiler, Germany. The race venue was in Saint Wendell, a town in the rolling countryside about 10 km away. Due to a severe lack of organization with regard to the National team our accommodation and technical assistance were only organized a week before and a big thanks to Vaughan for volunteering for the role of Australian team manager. Our accommodation was great, especially organized on such short notice and the lengths he, and assistant Jill, went to in order to ensure we had everything we needed and got our bottles and race feeds at the right times – it was extraordinary!

The days before the race were excruciating, having nothing to do except rest, stretch and eat. Trust me, its not as much fun as it sounds and makes for a very long day. There is only so much summer bi-athlon and grass-ski jumping you can watch on Eurosport. It was a relief to finally line up in the starting pen in the Australian colours and get the marathon underway. The course was a little…boring. There was a lot of riding through corn fields, grassy climbs and not as much single track as we would have in an Aussie marathon. The pace was hot though and we took off as if we were racing for 2 hours instead of 5. It was a pace I was sure I couldn’t sustain for the race so I dropped off the back and rode with a smaller group of about seven girls. In retrospect it would have been better to stay with the lead group as they were no more than 30 to 60 seconds ahead of us for most of the first half of the race. Lesson learned for next time!

It was more of a course for power riders and while I would pull away from the other girls on the hills, groups would soon catch me on the flats where the course was very open and windy. The second half of the race had much more climbing and I dropped the group I was riding with and managed to pick a handful of places as other riders suffered from the early pace. Finishing in 25th spot I achieved my goal of a top 30. Time-wise I was reasonably happy, being 11% behind the winner, just outside my goal of 10%. My team mate Adrian Jackson had a super ride finishing on 25 minutes (9%) behind the leader, a fact not reflected in his placing but still an awesome effort.

Suffering a bit of culture-fatigue and missing my daughter after being away for a month I boarded the plane for home, never more grateful to be confined to a tin can for 25 hours. While everything did not go perfectly (it never does!) I learned so much in terms of race-craft, organization and resources available when travelling, it was an invaluable experience and I am keen to do it all again next year.

Kids, racing and hospitals…all in a week!

Preparing for the Mt Perry 6 hour I thought it would be nice to have a relaxing Friday night, pottering around with bike stuff, quiet dinner with the family. So of course at 11pm my daughter projectile vomits all over her room after coming down with a stomach virus. After the clean-up and a couple of glasses of wine I finally get to sleep, ready for 5 hours of driving in the direction of Bundaburg the following day.
Arriving at the course on Sunday morning was the toughest part of the weekend – 0 degrees! Brrrr…! The 6 hour was long, as 6 hour races tend to be, but the course was a lot of fun. Perhaps not as beginner-friendly as the Dell XC course with some wicked steep switchbacks and rock gardens in the back half. Naomi Hansen pushed me all the way and forced me out on a final lap that I really did not want to do, just to cement the win. I had just recently switched to a gluten-free diet and discovered that eating gluten-free bread requires more saliva than I can muster during a race. The nutritional lessons keep coming.
The following week started quietly as I recovered from the race but by Wednesday I was still feeling quite ordinary. On Thursday I woke with the familiar feeling of nausea when one’s child has shared their germs. By Thursday evening the seemingly innocuous virus had resulted in searing abdominal pain, an ambulance transport to hospital, an emergency endoscopy and a pleasant amount of morphine. Friday was spent with 4 tubes coming out of various orifices, either pumping fluid in or draining fluid out. On Saturday the diagnosis was Acute Viral Hepatitis – basically my daughters virus had attacked my useless immune system and shut down my liver, stomach and kidneys. Kids!
Finally released on Sunday after 9 litres of saline, 3 days of no food and quite a couple of kilos lighter I had strict instructions to take it easy and no training until my liver reading had returned to normal (from 2000 back to 40), so only recovery rides to the coffee shop and 30 mins of altitude training (www.ats-altitude.com) in the gym each day for a week. My boss ordered me back to work – oh the joys of self employment – so I’m not sure how much resting actually got done.
My coach has eased my back in to training and in the end the week off from training feels like a good thing, although I might take it in less dramatic fashion next time. I still struggle with the work-life-training balance and when I get it wrong my body reminds me in the strongest terms. It’s amazing how much less tired and more pleasant I am as a parent when I ease back on the other two factors for a bit. If Helica thinks this whole pancakes-for-breakfast deal is going to last though she will be sadly disappointed!