K1 2007

100 km / Whitianga to Thames
Time:4:22:04
Category placing:28th

My first race ever. Pretty bloody nervous going into this.I was naïvely under the impression that everyone would be out for the win and would be ultra bad ass and competitive. I now know better!

Even though my race didn’t start until 12, I was up at 5am, to leave Whitianga at 6am and get to Thames at 9 am. I was scared of not being able to find a park in Thames, but as it turns out this wasn’t an issue at all. Caught the bus from Thames to Whitianga at 9am. Took an arduous 2.5 hours. After collecting my bike and waiting in the queue for the toilet I had no time to warm up.

I started near the back of the starting line, not really caring, but realise now that this disadvantaged me in terms of being able to catch up to any bunches later on in the race. At the top of the first hill out of Whitianga an unfortunate rider went bailing off the top of the cliff. Another guy in front of me stopped, I stopped too, and asked the guy if he was ok, he replied ‘well he’s moving’ and confirmed that he didn’t need me to stay. Kind of bummed that I had to stop because I had at that point just caught up to a bunch of about 6 that was about 100m in front of me for quite awhile and I had being working hard to catch up to them. Anyway, down the hill caught up with one guy and drafted him for awhile, then I took a turn at the front and another somwehat annoying woman tagged on the back, continually making remarks like ‘gawd doesn’t this bike have any more gears’ etc...

I had a relatively good race, didn’t have to stop for any reason after the first incident, and didn’t run out of water etc. In retrospect I wish I went a bit harder on the hills – at the summit of the last hill I actually thought there was one more big one to come because I didn’t’ feel I was suffering yet! However, the last 30km flat stretch into Thames was painful! Hardest part of the race. I went solo the whole way as the field was so spread out at that point; there was no one within sight either side of me for most of the duration. I went pretty hard for the first 15 or so km’s, doing around 28-30 and thinking I could maintain that. However that was not the case and I ended up getting pretty worn out and slowed to around 20kph for the rest of the ride in the head wind.

At the end I was just glad to finish and not come last in my category! Bloody good fun, great weather, everyone seemed to be in high spirits too. I am psyched for K2 2008!