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Time: 2:45:05
Category Placing: 18th
After a 20 min warm up I made my way to the start line. Not really sure of what my finishing time would be but feeling ambitious, I lined up somewhere in the 1st third of the starters. Strategically next to someone with a shiny SLC-SC for some quick perving.
Within the first 10km, I was fortunate to be in amongst a bunch of about 15 riders that was going at a fast but manageable speed for me, averaging around 30 km/h. There was another bunch about 800 m ahead, going at about the same speed but with about 30-40 riders. At the first (and only) thing resembling a hill, my obsessive hill training over summer paid off nicely and I caught up with the tail end of the first bunch.
The course is predominantly flat, but there is an awesome down hill section at about the 45 km mark which leads down into a gorge. Through the gorge there were some awesome tail winds, at one point the bunch was flying along between 45-55 km/h with very minimal effort. Much fun!
At about the 70 km mark, and just when the rain and wind set in, about 6-7 guys at the front of the bunch really started pushing the pace, from around 30 km/h to around 40 km/h. I hung on (just) for about 5 kms till I got dropped and for the last 15 km’s I rode by myself and my pace slowed significantly, to about 24-26 km/h. I passed 3 other riders who were dropped from that bunch in the last couple of km’s. The other bunch I was originally with must have maintained a much slower pace; glancing down the long straight highway with about 10 km’s to go, the road was completely bare.
Having not ridden this course before, I was unsure what sort of time to expect to achieve but I figured since 90 km’s is a fairly manageable length for me and the course profile is not hilly, I should just go hard out and not worry too much about pacing myself.
My goal time was to go under 3.5 hours. My finish time was 2.45 so I am ecstatic with that! The female winner, Meshy Holt, finished with 2:17.
Overall, it was a really fun, fast race and it was really motivating for me to see how much of an improvement I’ve made since the last race I did, which was Taupo. Particularly in terms of being able to maintain a much faster pace for a much longer period.
I will most likely be back for another stab next year, and hopefully carving a bit more of a dent in that 28 minute time gap!
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