2010 MTBA Nemesis Marathon Champs

Yesterday didn't get off to a great start for me, I was headed for my destination of Avoca and somehow managed to miss my turn off for the Sunraysia Hwy, I finally twigged when I was 25klms out of Ararat that something was amiss, I called my personal navman (my father) who gave me some directions to get there without having to go to Ararat or all the way back to Ballarat, some 66klms away from where I was. Luckily it was the day before the race and not the morning of. I met up with my cycling buddy Sandy in town and after we had registered we headed out to check out the course, lucky we did as there were no signs on how to get out to the race start and we managed to get off course before finally finding race central, it was good to get that sorted rather than at 7am on the morning of the race. We were then off to our next destination, The Avoca Golf Club for our dinner along with 100 other keen mountain bikers, some fun and games were had and our team managed to come 3rd in the quiz, that was about all the fun I could handle for one night so I called it a night and headed back to my motel, which was quite unique to say the least, wont get in to details but for someone that hates spiders it was not the best choice, I have seen less spiders in a garden shed than my room there.

So, it's 8am on race day and I head out to watch the start of the womens 90k race followed by the mens start half an hour later, I had about half an hour before the start of my race so I tried to relax and keep hydrating. 9.15am and its my turn to line up for the 33k race. We headed off for 5klms of dirt road followed by one massive hill, 8klms worth of hurt followed by a short downhill and many more klms of hurt, I finally made it to the first and only feed zone for my race and scoffed down a couple of cut oranges and filled up one of my water bottles, one of the girls on my race had stopped as well, we had been battling it out most of the race along with another girl, I saw her taking off so I jumped on my bike and headed off down the first series of descents in front of her, it wasn't long before I started coming up to some descents with caution signs, I obviously didn't take heed of this and approached the first water bar way too fast, going over the top I knew things were about to go bad, I hit the brakes way too hard and would have probably been better off continuing at speed as slowing down proved the wrong decision and I ended up taking a spill, strangely the only thing that was hurt was my ego, I took off again still in front of my main opponent and about 1k down the road I went to have a drink and realised my bottle wasn't there, lucky I had a smaller bottle with some water left in it, with only 10klms to go so I was hoping I would get through ok, the next 6klms were a bit up and down, there were a couple very steep climbs and my opponent managed to pass me, I thought she was long gone and then I caught sight of her up ahead, I was sure I was only about 1k from the finish line so I gave everything I had to catch her and pass her, then only a few seconds later I saw a sign with 4klms to go on it, and around the corner another bloody hill! Arghh, I had had enough and just wanted to get off my bike, I had the opportunity to do this when a short climb I would normally get up quite easily proved too much for me and I just had to walk, so was everyone else so I knew we were all in the same boat which made me feel a bit better about walking it. Finally I made it to the 32k mark, only 1k to go and no girls in sight in front or behind me, I had a surge of energy and being on flat ground I was able to pedal along pretty quickly, I spotted the finish line and in a cruel twist the organisers then send you 500 metres in the opposite direction through the grapevines on grass and finally through the finish line where the race caller had mistaken me for a world champion, my number had fallen off and I guess he thought one of the elite women from the 90k race had come through in really good time, so it was nice reception anyway for 33k rider that had just finished 1 hour after the winner of my category.

My old arch rival from the State XC series ended up beating me by 14minutes, I had passed her early on in the race but she was too strong for me on the climbs. So overall I was pretty happy with my result, I was worried about the race after my poor effort in the Otway Odyssey and I have still not spent much time on the bike so I knew I would be out there for a long time, my estimate was 4hours which almost was a hopeful 4 hours, I really thought it would take me longer, to my surprise I got through it in just over three and a half hours and 11th out of 15 female competitors and beat 12 men, which, considering I have barely done any riding over the last 12 months I was pretty happy with that, a bit sad that someone would be happy taking 3 1/2 hours to ride 33klms but I was and I was happy to get through mostly unscathed, the descents were very fast with lots of loose rocks and dirt to make it pretty tricky to hold your line, the race definitely kept you on your toes or pedals for that matter, it was well deserving of being a National Championship and the winners deserve every cent of their $1000 prize money, the eventual winner of the mens 90k race was Ben Mather with a time of 4 hours 40 minutes and Heather Logie in the womens coming in 5 hours and 53 minutes after leaving the start line. Croydon Cyleworks riders Tim Ferres finished 16th and Jason Halls 26th

I have left my very stressful full time job and I am now working 2 part time jobs, both of which are mostly stress free for me which is making a huge difference to everything, my uni work is under control and I am finally starting to do some training rides and getting motivated to do a lot more racing this year.

Until next time, happy biking!

Kat