Kowalski Classic 2012

2/10/12

It was great to get up to Canberra and race the Kowalski marathon event while also catching up with many of my Anytime fitness / Trek teammates last weekend.  As usual we had a rather hectic time.  The next weekend away I shall have to remember to schedule in a little more relax time I reckon!

Ed and I arrived into Canberra mid-afternoon on the Saturday. Team manager Rich had kindly offered to have us stay with him and the family for the night.  So we drove straight out to their place in the scenic rolling hills North of Canberra, or actually in NSW to be more accurate.  Jess, Rich and the kids were as welcoming as ever and as brief as the visit was it was great to spend a little quality time with them!

After a quick visit to the Bungendore Hotel to register, it was onto the Henderson’s place to join in celebrations for Bec’s 21^st.  It’s hard to believe the girl is only 21, after all that she has achieved!  She certainly has a bright future both on and off the bike. Leanne and the Henderson clan put on a fantastic spit roast along with plenty of delicious salads.  I made sure to taste test just about everything, using the quite valid excuse of needing to carb load for the following day.

After a latish night, I woke at my usual 4am the following morning.  My body clock is wired a little differently to most!  Lucky for me, race start was nice and early (7.30am), so not as much time to wait around and get nervous.  We ventured out to the race start by 6.30am with plenty of time for a pre-race w/up.  I generally allow for at least 20-30min warm up prior to a marathon. However this time round, due to the 2-3 degrees Canberra morning and my lack of riding the previous day, I had wanted an even longer warm up.  Maybe I’m just getting old and it takes a while to get the joints mobile… As it turns out I needn’t have worried so much about warming up.

Beautiful day for it!

I had planned to really ease into the race, while the 90km of single track was bound to be fun; I also knew that it was to be a long hard battle ahead.  So, after the start gun was fired, I let the front pack go which also included my main competition Peta Mullens.  The track started with a few km’s of fire road and then it was into the single track.  I followed another guy into this first section of trail and started to find a good rhythm.  We were moving along well and I was just thinking to myself how well the superfly was handling, when the guy in front came to a sudden stop and started to swear.  I looked up, not sure what was going on, and found that we were standing back at the start line?? Somehow we had missed a turn off. The 2 guys I was with decided to back-track.  I didn’t really want to give in to a possible overall result, so after consulting the race director, I was kindly allowed to re-start my race back in wave 5.

Maybe Should have studied this map a little better!

Take 2.  This time I found the turn-off, yay!  The next 2 hrs consisted of constantly trying to get around the congested trails.  Normally I can’t get enough of single-trail and wish that more courses were like this one, but I found myself getting frustrated and actually wishing for a few ‘open’ sections to round up more of the riders.  Most people were quite friendly and moved over when it was safe, however the constant accelerations were quite tiring and hold-ups couldn’t be helped.  At times I gave in and just sat back enjoying the ride for a while, but once I reached the 2hr mark the congestion started to clear and I told myself to get back into ‘race mode’ or at least make a good training day out of it.

There was a timed climb and descent section, just before the half-way mark, where the fastest overall male and female would receive a prize.  The climb was certainly a tough one, with many around me reverting to walking up.  I did my best to stay on the bike and punch over the top and really pushed the descent hoping I could make up for a so far disastrous race.  Following this section it was hard to keep the power down knowing that we were not even yet at the halfway mark! I was surprised to come across Anne Symmes at this point and this spurred me on some more as I knew I was now in 2^nd place and all was not lost.

Trying to put some power down on the climb

Despite my concentrated effort to really focus on the trails ahead, I still managed to take 2 more wrong turns over the course of the race.  To be honest, I found this event more of a battle mentally than physically and just tried to not let frustrations get the better of me.  After all, some of the sections of trail were most enjoyable and one of my main aims for the day was to get some quality training in.  There were some nasty steep climbs mixed into the last 20km, however there were also some sweet bits of single track to make up for it.  With some blurred vision starting up and the horrible feelings of cramp coming on, I was well and truly ready for the finish line!

I was happy to learn that despite a bad day at the office, I had only finished 10min back on Peta and had claimed 2^nd female overall.   I was also excited to hear how well the rest of the team had gone. In the shorter 50km event promising young junior, Cameron Prossser had taken overall victory and team manager Richard Peil finished up 2^nd in Masters.  In the 90km event, Brendan Johnston had a tough battle up front and eventually finished up 2^nd overall only 2min down. Peta Mullens had of course taken out the female overall with me in 2^nd.  So a successful day’s work for the Anytime Fitness / Trek team! On checking out the results more closely the following day, I was happy to note that I had in fact won the timed climb and descent sections.  This gives me some confidence with my progressing form leading up to the next few weeks of racing. I’m very much looking forward to one of my favourite local races next weekend, the You Yang’s Yowie marathon!