Be at one with the trail

[crazycanuck]

I'm slowly getting into the zone for this weekend's 12hr. I am on a 4 person social team & can't wait!! The rain we've had has made the pea gravel mushy :D :) ahhhh.

I am slow & aim to do my laps in about 55min. I've memorized where I can speed up & my turtle areas..

Last but not least, I must be at one with the trail...:cool: It's a lovely course :)

Ahhhh..

I just need some EPO :o

[surgtech1956]

good luck, I this year I didn't get out on my mountain bike like I was planning to.

[Miranda]

Go get em girl:cool:... Ride that trail like you own it!

Hope all goes well and safe.

Miranda :)

[crazycanuck]

Thanks!

I got back on my mtn bike in late September :D after moons of work on my right leg :rolleyes:

I'm still crap at mtn biking but I don't care, it's fun :cool:


Best team name so far on the entrant's list-The Moe Szyszlak Experience! ( I didn't know Moe had a group!)

[jesvetmed]

Make us proud and have fun! Becoming one with the trail shouldn't be taken too literally, by the way!

[Trekhawk]

Good luck for the weekend CC!
I know you will have a blast.:)

[crazycanuck]

:cool: :D

I had tons of fun this weekend. I'll post a few pics & give a bit of a lowdown when I feel like typing.

[Trekhawk]

:cool: :D

I had tons of fun this weekend. I'll post a few pics & give a bit of a lowdown when I feel like typing.

Yay!!
Look forward to getting the low down.:)

[Aggie_Ama]

:cool: :D

I had tons of fun this weekend. I'll post a few pics & give a bit of a lowdown when I feel like typing.

Yippee! I am impatiently waiting for that report. ;)

[crazycanuck]

I'll try and explain everything :rolleyes:. This is a bit long...

I have no idea why I get myself worked up over big events? On the day, it all seems to come into place. This year's 12hr seemed much better than my last one 2yrs ago. I'm still freakin slow but i am a bit faster than last time! Perhaps because we did most of our practice laps at night, I felt a bit better about the track.

Saturday came & there was a bit of nervousness but also calm. I'd prepared my meal plan, checked we had everything & felt ok to go out the door. We left early in order to place ourselves near transition & be near our gang. As you can see by one of the photos, it was all laid back in the hood. The rest of my team arrived & we set out to organize the starting list etc.

I never ever want to do the first lap as it's chaos! I get second lap honours :). Saw the start & went to get changed. Everything was cool & I was looking forward to getting out for an actual day lap!! Wahoo!!!

To explain a bit about transition-it's set up right in front of what we call "the pines" & you can see your teammate zoom through and be ready to hand over the timing band. Mine came in & do you think i could get that timing chip on the right way? :rolleyes: I was off.

My first lap was great in terms of feeling at one with the zone & the trail. I knew areas where i could push & others where i know i'd lose time. The first 6km's were great but remembered I still had bits that i struggled on. It all passed really quickly without any major offs or holding anyone up. My hydration was ok & the Gu worked:). I think i add about 5min onto my times at events like this because i stop to let the FAST folks go past. I'm not out to win a placing but I am out to beat my own time. Does that make sense?

I felt good at the end & looked forward to the second lap. I had a couple of hours up my sleeve so I puttered around. Thought about what to eat, changed into a new jersey so i wouldn't catch a chill & wondered how Ian was doing. I was happy he didn't do it solo this year!!!

Second lap & first night lap. This one however would turn out to be a combination of funny, annoying & challenging. I know never to try anything new at an event but i dídn't think it applied to prescription sunglasses. I have a pair of Rudy Project Rydon's with my prescription inserts & finally found a clear pair of extra lenses a few days before the event. Anywho, I was toodling along the track when a fine dusting of rain started :eek: & it was coming straight at me. Ok, fine, i'll deal with this & kept going. That was until..my inserts fogged up :eek: I stopped & removed the insert in the hopes it would help. Nope :( :confused: :mad: I had no clue what to do & thought i have to go on but there are sections ahead that will be rather hard if i continue. AGHGHG. I felt guilty as i didn't want to keep my team mates waiting but also didn't want to fling myself into a tree!!! Luckily a friend of ours passed me & i gave her a message to give to my team mates about not being able to see. I have no idea how I made it back but I did. Don't ask about the time for that lap!!! :o :o

I took the sunnies off & firmly placed my glasses on my face..I need to find some anti fog stuff from the car product aisle..

I am not a night owl but don't mind waking up early to do something special. I grabbed a few hours snoozing but I hadn't thought about how much sleep I should grab beforehand. At 2am, someone called my name & said you're up. Ok, cool but where are my glasses :eek: AHASGHGH..Right in front of me :rolleyes: Next thought..what do i eat? Quick food! Banana!

Third lap was much better but it was a blur! The only thing I remember is wondering where to move over if i was holding folks up. I loved my lights & began to trust them on that lap. The Ay-Ups are awesome for mtn biking at night & will do more! I was a smiden bit slower but it was about 5-6min slower than my first.

What does a chick do after her last lap? First, cofeeeeeeeeeeee..ahhhhh..& watch the rest of the folks who are racing for a place, battle it out. The top solo rider was just a machine & no one could catch him. Tons of fun to watch!

The end came :( , prizes handed out (our team came third in the mixed 4person category..no clue how!!) & thought about how to get home. Breakfast at the small local cafe & then ventured home. I don't remember the drive but apparently Ian stopped for 10min to sleep as well. Threw everything on the kitchen floor & went to sleep. 4hrs later we felt a bit more alive!!!

Will i do it again next year? YEP!!!! (as long as it's not raining!!!) Tons of fun & love getting involved. I can't wait for the XC club racing season!!

Next mission, 1.6km open water swim this weekend..

[pardes]

Wow, what a day (night?) that must have been. Great photos! Thanks for the description. How long was each run that you did?

[Trekhawk]

Sounds like you had a great ride. Well done !!:)

[crazycanuck]

The course is 13km & 95% of the event is at night. It starts at 6pm & runs til 6am. Sunset is about 8pm.

[pinkbikes]

Ahh - sounds like you had a great time! :) Very well done and go girl with those Ay Ups! They really make night riding a breeze compared to anything else I've used.

Bummer about the specs fogging up - I can sympathise having had light rain during the night at two of my last three D2D and 24 Hour events. But kudos to you for trucking on through it. I'm sure your team-mates appreciated it - and probably appreciated that it was you out there in it not them!!

[crazycanuck]

Ian recently bought a helmet cam & used it on the day.

What's/Where's the best way/place to put it on the net?? If you do watch it, it'll probably make you dizzy but it's tons of fun to view!!! The night lap he videod was really cool :cool:

Pinkbikes-What sized team did you do the 24hr on? What's a 24hr like?

[pinkbikes]

Hi cc. Well I've done two 24 hour races at two different venues and in two different teams with different strategies. And I enjoyed them both....

The first was sort of impromptu. I got a phonecall out of the blue one day from a girl I did a clinic with to ask whether I would be the last member of an all-girl team of 6 for the Merida 24hour at Kooralbyn back in April. I had met three of them before and they were great gals (and not deadly serious but wanted to give it a decent go) so I said yes, that I would happily be a part of the MTBDirt Daisies (if you could see my avatar better you'd see a daisy zip-tied to the top of my helmet and daisies on my jersey!)

I had very limited preparation - only three weeks and one was on a cruise ship! I rode the exercise bike in the gym until my eyes crossed and ran up and down all those stairs until my butt burned. I was feeling very "leg-strong" but fell off my bike within an hour of getting home (the world was still rocking unfortunately but the bike wasn't) and bruised the ribs and had resulting back spasm 6 days out from the race. So it probably wasn't the best preparation!:rolleyes:

But the girls were GREAT! We ended up with a strategy of running two groups of three. The laps weren't too long - about 8.5km -and we ended up doing two laps each and then one group of three went to bed for 6 hours while the others kept going, then we came back while they went for a sleep, and then they did laps and then we did laps. It worked really well that way, as the event was in the grounds of a pretty decent resort (now in receivership) and we had a nice hotel room to sleep in and shower to shower in etc! It was a wonderful introduction to 24hour racing and since we were the only 6gal team, we won our category (well duh!) Mind you, we could have done one lap and rested on our laurels and still won our category, but instead we did 32laps, so we were justifiably proud and I made some great friends to ride with and did my best ever lap at Kooralbyn by a country mile.

The second 24hour race was VERY special! It was the Insomnia 24 Hour at Kurwongbah, north of Brisbane. It was the race I went to look at last year that made me get into MTB in the first place, swearing that I would be back to do it myself this year. In the process of getting ready I coerced and corrupted friends and co-workers to "see the light" and get into MTB too.

In the end my DH and I put together two teams of friends, rellies and workmates to contest the race. DH's team was the MTBDirt Cranky Old B@stards (complete with jersey from Suarez) and was a 4 man team. My team was the MTBDirt Dilberts and was a 6 person mixed team. It was a logistical undertaking of magnitude, as it was held on a beautiful property with no power, no running water, and no accommodation. We had shade-houses, a huge barbecue, various tents for sleeping (our 10yo daughter was with us, along with a fair few support crew) and even a communal bikerack made from star-pickets, timber and zipties. I even made team banners. And we even had a team "massage therapist" who was a friend of one of our team members and just loves MTB but couldn't race.

The lap was quite long - 17.5km - so we were able to just take it in turns. It was a great course - not too hilly or so technical as Kooralbyn - but quite muddy in places from recent rain. There was a point at about 12km where the course came back past our camp, so the rider could yell out "Dilbert" or "Cranky" as they went past and the next rider knew they needed to get ready to go soon.

Everybody got along so well in our teams and we had humour running rampant (we even had a disco ball hanging from a tree) that we were sad it was over when the end drew near.

Funnily enough, we didn't think to check the results until a couple of hours before the end, only to find out we were coming third by the narrowest of margins. We had a quick re-think of our strategy (everybody take a turn and do the best you can and try not to fall off) and sent out one of our quicker riders next to guarantee we could get one more rider out before the timer stopped. We cemented out third place, which was just icing on the cake of a fantastic weekend. Everybody had such a nice time together that we met up a couple of weeks later for a "latte de-brief" to share pics and tall tales!:)

Everybody is keen to give it a go again next year, with some of us even thinking about venturing over to Rotorua for the Ay Up 24hour in March. Ay Up are the naming sponsor next year and are keen to put together a package to encourage the Aussie contingent to head "across the ditch."

So there - it is - a long-winded version of how much fun 24 hour racing can be for a sturdily-built, only somewhat fit, MTB newbie!:D

[pinkbikes]

Oh - (and as if it looks like i left anything out!!) - I forgot to mention...

In the first race we each got a lap in in the daylight, which was great, so we knew where we were going in the dark. And it helped that we'd ridden the course before too in other races. We each did 5 laps, with two of the girls managing to get in a 6th.

In the second race, because of the longer lap and because it was held on the Winter Solstice so we got the longest night possible, we couldn't get a daytime lap for everybody. As the most experienced night rider (but far from the most experienced rider) I got to do my first lap in the dark and went OTB! We each did 3 laps except for the guys we sent out in a rush towards the end to sneak an extra lap in (he did 4). And I didn't ever see the course in the daylight until I did our very last lap! All the way around I was "Ooo - look at that! Ahh - THAT'S where this is! Oh- look how close we are to camp here!":o