Time for another weekend road trip to the 80km “Highlander”
mtb marathon. With the cancellation of
the Moonride in February I felt the need for some ‘event practice’ to try and
get my brain used to being in ‘event mode’ – and a really good excuse to spend
the weekend riding in Rotorua!
I didn’t have a great start to the weekend, with Friday being a ‘scared’ day and generally
finding trail alligators in all sorts of unexpected places. Cue much frustration and cursing, but,
eventually I managed to clear most of my ‘trouble spots’ with help from my
poor, long-suffering and incredibly patient husband!
Saturday was a totally different experience. All of the trail alligators appeared to have
left town for the day and I flowed over Friday’s trouble spots and couldn’t
resist the odd “YUSS!!” out loud in a couple of spots. I love days like this – feels like I’m truly
at one with the bike, rolling over roots and flowing around tight corners as if
I know what I’m doing. I spend the rest
of the day relaxing in the sun and catching up/chilling out with friends. Scarily enough I was feeling (relatively)
confident and relaxed about the race, looking forward to getting out and
destroying myself on some fantastic trails.
Then on Saturday night it rained. Then rained some more. Even more rain early
on Sunday morning. I know this because I
was awake the entire night – I didn’t think that I was overly worried, just
could not get comfortable and every time I started to drift off I thought “yay,
sleep!” – Which promptly pushed me wide awake again! I dragged myself out of the suddenly very
comfortable bed, stuffed down some breakfast and pedalled off to the forest
early enough for a coffee and a bit of chit-chat before the start. The start list was surprisingly short – only
20 people entered for the full distance (plus the elites taking part in the
Marathon Champs). At least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting in too many
people’s way.
Both rain and ‘events’ increase my anxiety and decrease the
level of confidence I have in my ability to ride my bike – combine the two and
the effect is magnified x 100! I know
perfectly well that it’s not rational, but rational thoughts tend to get buried
under the onslaught of unhelpful anxious thoughts.
I was fairly near the back of the start loop, mistakenly not
passing a single speeder in the open, so had to sit behind him until the coast
was clear (probably cost me all of 5 seconds to be honest!) by which time the
rest of the field had disappeared in to the distance. I rolled fairly happily through the first
part of Rockdrop and on in to Genesis, where all was good until I fluffed an
uphill switchback and ended up upside down under my bike having heard a nasty
scraping noise. Scrambling back up I
noticed that my seat was now pointing nose down – not seriously, but not flat,
either! Oh, well – SIUP (suck it up,
princess) and carry on up down, round and around through Soakhole, then in to
the lovely A-Trail. The entrance had
gotten a little cut up, but I bounced down it fine and proceeded to grin
stupidly – I’d forgotten how much I love this trail. From here it was up – up Tickler, Up Direct
Rd, up Frontal Lobotomy – which was actually riding pretty nicely – then up to
Billy T. This has been a ‘bogey’ trail
of mine in the past and I was a bit apprehensive about how wet it would be. I needn’t have worried (as usual!) – The
trail was fine, with only a couple of silly mistakes. Then it was up, up, up again to Split Enz,
which is always worth the climb – lovely, flowy swoopy goodness. Off around the lake through some fairly
overgrown sections (mostly at short person head-height), twice past the
friendly marshals at the drink station, then up again to No Brains. I’ve ridden this trail before, but today
wasn’t going to be a repeat. I spent far too much time walking – even down the
section that Shane had hiked in to take photos of!! Annoyingly, it was all rideable – even by me
– but my stupid brain just kept saying “no”.
I did manage to not get too upset and just carry on, accepting the lack
of mojo. At this point the rain gods got
serious and decided to make up for the dryness of the past few weeks with some
serious water falling from the sky. I
came to a nice hike-a-bike section – rideable by mountain goats, possibly –
then on to Pondy New (a very appropriate
name given the amount of water around).
The rain seemed to be washing away what was left of my confidence, I was
balking on sections that I can (and have) ridden in my sleep! Lion trail was a giant river, Grinder was
sloppily messy in places and the final trail, Rosebank, had plenty of paddling
pools had I felt like stopping to play.
I stomped through the water splash and headed for home – at least the
finish flags were still out – thanks Ra! – although prize giving was well and
truly over and most of the competitors had packed up and gone home. I haven’t missed prizegiving by that much
for quite a while and it can be quite disheartening, especially when you were
hoping to prove to yourself just how much you’d improved.
I’ve had numerous attempts at tackling the anxiety and lack
of confidence that I have both in general and on the bike. Sometimes you beat the monsters and sometimes
you’ve just got to deal with them. I’m
not giving up on beating the little buggers, just trying not to waste time and
energy getting upset when they get the better of me… and keep remembering how
lucky I am to be able to get out and ride in such fantastic places with some
pretty amazing people.
