“Today we will be racing the full course including the Over Under section” announced Rody the infamous 331 race starter with a cheeky grin. An involuntary groan was the unified response from the field of racers standing before him which seemed to just fuel his now slightly sinister smile. Quickly the over cautious part of my brain started to make calculations, many hours of research and planning had gone into the fueling strategy for today's race and there was little room for error, would this extra distance mean that I wouldn’t have enough water, gel, protein etc.? Had my meticulous planning been in vein? “What a geek” I hear you say… Well yeah, I work in IT so I can’t help it, I do love a good spreadsheet and to be honest I still haven’t fully recovered from the mental damage caused by “the incident” at the Westbranch endurance race a couple years back, I’ll skip the details but rest assured I learned a valuable lesson in nutrition that day, what you get out of your body is equal to what you put, in other words… Crap in… Crap out… Anyway, in general I’ve not done tremendously well at the endurance type races, 2 years ago “the incident” happened and last years Westbranch endurance race finished early for me when I miss judged a root, flew over the bars and bounced off a tree. A hour long limp back to the start line followed. But this race was going to be different, I’d been training hard, I had a nutrition plan and a game plan for the race. After 20 seconds of mental calculations I realized I was nothing without my trusted spreadsheet and accepted that I’d have to wing it. So there I stood primed and ready for 4 laps of Vultures Knob, what could possibly go wrong, all I had to do was pedal and follow the plan and it should all work out. As 2 pm drew closer Rody's jokes did their usual fantastic job of keeping the mood light and fun but still, you could literally smell the adrenaline in the air. Before we knew it the mens expert race was lined up and ready to go, this included brave KSD crusader Michael “big leg” Gottfried…. These guys make me sick, unlike mine, their skin tight bike gear actually looks like it fits, not a beer belly or love handle in sight. And in a flash they were off in a strange combo of shaved legs, and testosterone. As the expert ladies lined up I couldn’t help but wonder which one of them would lap me during the race. I think I’m on a 3 race streak of being “Chicked” and in this race it was just inevitable. Next up the Sport Open race with an respectable showing from KSD including Andy, Kenny and new to this class Rodney. Shortly after their departure Rodys straining vocal chords yelled “Mens Sport 30 – 39” and with my heart racing I rolled to the line, tummy in, chest out, game face on. For some reason in the seconds leading up to any race I always have the same horrifying thought, just as I click in… “my arse feels cold, oh no…. what if my shorts just ripped up the back” convinced this time I really was mooning the world I casually inched my hand around the back of my shorts, carefully disguised as an itch I assessed the integrity of my shorts and was relatively happy that they were not ripped. Just as my hand returned to the bar the countdown came and we were off…..
The race started well for me, I managed to grab 5th position before the trail narrowed and my legs felt quite happy with the pace, as we enter the series of turns I felt confident in my new tires and for me at least, I was really leaning into the turns and staying off the brakes…. Could this be my day? I allowed myself a second to consider how good beer would taste from a 331 racing pint glass before getting my head back to the race. I don’t know the names of the sections too well but as we approach what I call the “switch back cliff of death” I still felt good, the lead 4 were pulling away from me slightly at this point but hey it’s a marathon not a sprint, they’ll keep. And then it happened, that all too familiar feeling, the pedals stop turning and I wrestle with the bike to get rid of a rather nasty case of Chain suck, during the process of fixing it I totally missed a corner and by the time I sorted myself out and got back to the trail there was no doubt that I was in last position. “It’s a marathon not a sprint mark it’s a marathon not a sprint” I kept trying to tell myself as I pedaled for all I’m worth. My efforts didn’t go unrewarded and it actually seemed like I was making up some ground but as my pace evened out a bunch of people from the race behind were suddenly on my back wheel. Leading the charge behind was Keith the mustache wearing, Groovy riding guy that either has turrets syndrome or just likes yelling at me in races, he seems fairly calm before the start but you can guarantee at some point in every race he’ll be behind somewhere yelling at me or at least in my general direction, I can never quite make out what he’s yelling but I’m pretty sure this time it involved poisonous monkeys and a jack hammer... So on I pedaled with Keith and his poisonous monkeys nipping at my back wheel as we crested a hill and started to descend. Suddenly my front tire felt very squishy and a second later it was flat, with no control I just looked for a soft place to land and stacked into a bank, somehow I managed to land on my back still holding onto my bar and was able to stop the bike from T-boning Keith and co. Once they had passed I quickly realized that part of the reason my landing had been so soft was because I had landed in an ants nest and quickly leapt up and started to swat. With the ants removed the next task was to assess the wheel, maybe it had just burped. A quick inspection didn’t show any visible damage so I grabbed some CO2 and squirted it back up to pressure. At this point I could see that a rock had slashed the sidewall and the air was escaping through a small, maybe 5mm gash…. I rapidly started to shake the tire hoping the sealant would fix the hole, not really thinking my tire shaking strategy through I stupidly held it far too close to my face and as the Stans sprayed out of the hole I got a pretty good mouth full of sealant. For those that are curious, yes, Stans no Tubes does taste a little like Perpetuem. In the end my attempts to seal the hole failed and I had to resort to my spare tube. During the time this took, pretty much the entire field had passed me. The rest of the lap was a blur but I have to say I wasn’t riding too bad. I started lap 2 after grabbing my spare, spare tube and set off at a reasonable pace, everything was going well until very suddenly it wasn’t. I can only assume that I had not done a great job of my lap 1 rapid repairs because all of a sudden the inner tube flew out of the left side of the tire and simultaneously I made an ungraceful dismount off the right side of the bike. After a few seconds of colorful language I rapidly began my repairs, within a few mins I was back on my way. Long gone was the “marathon not a sprint” message in the back of my head, now it was all about just finishing. Lap 3 was a blast, if not a little surreal, I had a mid lap conversation with an old guy that I’m pretty sure thought that I was someone else but he was very encouraging. I started to wonder if maybe I was hallucinating, but he seemed too real for that, I bid him farewell as I passed him after a mile or so and off I went. With any chance of seeing the podium long gone I focused on having some fun, I wasn’t particularly fast and I didn’t really see anyone else for most of the lap, part of my mind wondered if everyone else had finished the race already while I’d been farting around with my front wheel. The lyrics form the Cake song “the distance” popped into my head and kept me going for the rest of the lap.
Yes Danisha, hang your bar in shame... We still aren't speaking.
I finished lap 3 to an almighty thunderous grumble from the sky and as I started lap 4 it really started to rain. And so began the lap from hell, as soon as it got muddy my old friend chain suck raised his ugly head and rendered my bike unridable on practically every climb on the course. To add insult to injury I got chicked on the Over/Under section. For some reason I was flailing around at the time and almost knocked her off but she was very polite about the whole thing, I would imagine that she probably thought there was something a bit wrong with me. In the end I finished the race in 04:40:44.38 which was about an hour longer than I’d hoped for. Certainly nothing to be proud of but you know what, it wasn’t a bad day at all, 3 years ago I found out I potentially have the same life threatening heart condition that killed my dad and as a result I now have a lump of electronics in my chest to give me a jolt if something does go horribly wrong. I remember lying in the recovery room wondering if I’d be the same after and if I’d be able to still push myself. 3 years on here I am, 4 laps of Vultures knob with a bike that was determined to make me fail…. No problem. What makes it all the sweeter is the sense of camaraderie we have both in KSD and at 331 races in general. A lot of people passed me that day and all but about 2 of them offered help or words of encouragement. I have friends that ride in race all over the world and none of them seem to be part of something as special as we have here so a big thanks to everyone that contributes and turns up and makes it so awesome…. See ya on the trail.
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